The European Investment Bank as Policy Entrepreneur and the Promotion of Public-Private Partnerships

Moritz Liebe and David Howarth

New Political Economy, 2020, vol. 25, issue 2, 195-212

Abstract: This paper focuses on the important role of the European Investment Bank (EIB) in the European Union’s promotion of Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs). We first demonstrate the relative importance of the EIB in relation to the European Commission on the promotion of PPPs. We then argue that the activism of the EIB on PPPs can be explained in terms of the bank’s operation as a policy entrepreneur. The paper further explains that the entrepreneurial role of the EIB with regard to PPPs relied massively on the presence of a small number of, principally British, ‘norm entrepreneurs’ who actively promoted the PPP concept and the specific norms that supported it within the EIB. While there are indications that the EIB operated as a rational actor in its promotion of PPPs, we argue that ideas ultimately drove the pro-PPP activism of both individual EIB officials and the institution collectively.

Date: 2020
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/13563467.2019.1586862 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:cnpexx:v:25:y:2020:i:2:p:195-212

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/cnpe20

DOI: 10.1080/13563467.2019.1586862

Access Statistics for this article

New Political Economy is currently edited by Professor Colin Hay

More articles in New Political Economy from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().