Public, Private, or Inter-Municipal Organizations: Actors’ Preferences in the Swiss Water Sector

Eva Lieberherr and Karin Ingold
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Eva Lieberherr: Institute for Environmental Decisions, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, 8092 Zurich, Switzerland
Karin Ingold: Institute of Political Science and Oeschger Center of Climate Change Research, University of Bern, 3012 Bern, Switzerland

Sustainability, 2022, vol. 14, issue 13, 1-12

Abstract: To improve sustainable service provision, the public sector has been repeatedly subject to administrative reforms. Yet, the question arises of which types of organizations might be preferred. To address this, we systematically analyze which water supply organizations decision-makers and stakeholders, across different levels of government in Switzerland, prefer. We find that the actors prefer public organizations that involve coordination between municipalities and reject private organizations. Distinguishing between different actor levels reveals a distinct pattern, mainly related to the level of responsibility: the national (confederation) and regional (cantonal) actors only prefer coordination across municipalities, where local politicians lose a degree of control. In contrast, the local actors prefer those organizations where they can maintain democratic control the most. However, such organizations are not expected to perform sustainably, mainly because of lengthy decision-making processes, lack of access to external funds, and short-term financial planning. We, thus, conclude that, at the local level, there is potentially a trade-off between democratic values and performance.

Keywords: administrative reforms; organizational autonomy; coordination; actor preferences; water sector; Switzerland (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
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