Country, sector and method effects in studying remunicipalization: a meta-analysis
| Author | Bart Voorn |
| DOI | 10.1177/00208523211007915 |
| Published date | 01 September 2021 |
| Date | 01 September 2021 |
Country, sector
and method effects
in studying
remunicipalization:
a meta-analysis
Bart Voorn
Radboud University, The Netherlands
Abstract
A growing literature demonstrates increasing remunicipalization of local public ser-
vices. Yet, while this literature is becoming extensive, manydebates still exist about
remunicipalization’s causes. This article reports the findings of a meta-analysis of the
remunicipalization literature, focusing on the question: how do country, sector and
method effects affect the findings of remunicipalization studies? I include articles on
remunicipalization under different terms (‘remunicipalization’,‘reverse privatization’,
‘insourcing’and ‘contracting in’), using a large range of methods (case studies, surveys
and document analysis) and covering a large period (1995–2019). I find 30 causes of
remunicipalization that are considered and found in the literature. Political and prag-
matic factors appear to be most frequently considered and found as causes of remu-
nicipalization in the literature; environmental factors are less often considered but
seem highly relevant. Moreover, I uncover large differences between the qualitative
and quantitative literatures. I offer a research agenda to allow greater future synthesis
in the remunicipalization literature.
Points for practitioners
The literature on remunicipalization is highly fragmented and remunicipalization can
have many different causes. Remunicipalization appears to be both a political and a
pragmatic trend, but the literature is still too fragmented to know for sure. Be
Corresponding author:
Bart Voorn, Radboud Universiteit Faculteit der Managementwetenschappen, Public Administration, Nijmegen,
Nijmegen 6500 HK, The Netherlands.
Email: b.voorn@fm.ru.nl
Article
International
Review of
Administrative
Sciences
International Review of Administrative
Sciences
2021, Vol. 87(3) 440–460
© The Author(s) 2021
Article reuse guidelines:
sagepub.com/journals-permissions
DOI: 10.1177/00208523211007915
journals.sagepub.com/home/ras
aware of the potential biases and limitations in current research on (causes of)
remunicipalization.
Keywords
meta-analysis, political causes, pragmatic causes, remunicipalization, systematic review
Introduction
1
Academics and practitioners in the domain of local government studies are gripped
by the (contested) phenomenon of remunicipalization. Some researchers in the litera-
ture have declared remunicipalization quite strongly as a political trend, that is, as ‘a
set of mobilisations against the neoliberal state’(Routledge et al., 2018: 83) or, more
broadly, as a response to a ‘privatization model in crisis’(Becker et al., 2015: 76).
Others have emphasized the pragmatic nature of remunicipalization, presenting it as
‘part of a pragmatic market management process’(Warner and Aldag, 2019) ‘moti-
vated by traditional concerns with contract management’(Clifton et al., 2019).
Whether politics or pragmatism, or another factor, underlies the remunicipalization
trend remains debated.
Although there have been multiple literature reviews into remunicipalization
(McDonald, 2018; Voorn et al., 2020; Wollmann, 2018), no synthesis of the academic
findings about causes of remunicipalization has yet occurred. Previous review studies
have had specific purposes, such as providing a typology of different types of remunici-
palization (McDonald, 2018), explaining the remunicipalization trend in historical
context (Wollmann, 2018) or challenging the idea that remunicipalization is a political
trend (Voorn et al., 2020). Moreover, with the exception of McDonald (2018), these
studies have generally stopped short of reviewing the more quantitative literature on
the sources of remunicipalization, often published under different terms (‘reverse privat-
ization’or ‘insourcing’, or not explicitly using any term). Consequently, a synthesis of
knowledge about (the causes of) remunicipalization is still missing, and the literature
remains fragmented.
This article reports the findings of a meta-analysis of the literature on the causes of
remunicipalization, providing an answer to the question: how do countries, sectors and
methodologies affect the causes considered and found in remunicipalization studies? I
describe the key causes of remunicipalization that are considered and found in this litera-
ture, and contextualize these findings against the background of the methods used, coun-
tries investigated and sectors studied. My aim is to identify what is studied and found
about causes of remunicipalization, which findings can be generalized and which
cannot, and what the limitations of current research are.
Ifind that the literature can be synthesized, and particularly that the findings of quali-
tative and quantitative research into remunicipalization can be integrated, by distinguish-
ing between ‘proximate’and ‘ultimate’causes, and I provide a framework for this. I also
Voorn 441
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