Varieties of public–private policy coordination: How the political economy affects multi-actor implementation
| Date | 01 July 2021 |
| Author | Jale Tosun,Philipp Trein |
| Published date | 01 July 2021 |
| DOI | 10.1177/0952076719889099 |
| Subject Matter | Regular Articles |
Articles
Varieties of public–
private policy
coordination: How
the political economy
affects multi-actor
implementation
Philipp Trein
University of Lausanne, Switzerland
Jale Tosun
Heidelberg University, Germany
Abstract
This study seeks to introduce the concept of Varieties of Capitalism to the study of
multi-actor implementation arrangements. It illustrates the analytical value of this clas-
sification scheme by drawing from original empirical data and addresses two key
research questions, namely how do public and private actors cooperate in delivering
on public policy, and which factors determine the scope of their cooperation? To
address these questions, the article examines governance arrangements adopted by
individual European Union member states for implementing the Youth Guarantee. The
Youth Guarantee was selected because all European Union member states must and
have indeed already started to implement it, meaning it provides a broad empirical base
for observing different types of public–private coordination. The findings demonstrate
that a hierarchical structure in a country’s political economy and prior expenditure on
active labour market policies result in different governance arrangements.
Keywords
European Union, governance, implementation, political economy, Youth Guarantee
Corresponding author:
Jale Tosun, Institute of Political Science, Heidelberg University, Bergheimer Strasse 58, Heidelberg 69115,
Germany.
Email: jale.tosun@ipw.uni-heidelberg.de
Public Policy and Administration
2021, Vol. 36(3) 379–400
!The Author(s) 2019
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DOI: 10.1177/0952076719889099
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Introduction
Governance has become an important theoretical perspective in research on public
policy and administration (Bouckaert, 2017; Pierre, 2000). Among other things,
the literature on governance has contended that the inclusion of non-state (i.e.
private) actors in policymaking and policy implementation matters for coping with
policy challenges (Brinkerhoff and Brinkerhoff, 2011; Busetti and Dente, 2018;
McNutt and Pal, 2011; Pierre, 2000; Pierre and Peters, 2000; Rhodes, 2003). In
particular, governance research has indicated that it is worth concentrating on
networks of private and public actors when examining the delivery of public
policy, especially in multilevel systems such as the European Union (EU) (see
Graziano, 2011; Hartlapp and Heidbreder, 2018; Hupe, 2011; Kohler-Koch and
Rittberger, 2006; Radaelli, 2008; Tosun et al., 2019a). Despite the magnitude of the
existent literature in this area, we can still improve our understanding of the design
and functioning of such arrangements for multi-actor implementation (Busetti and
Dente, 2018) as well as of the degree of coordination between public and private
actors within them (Bouckaert, 2017). Such research is especially fruitful in multi-
level contexts, where different geographical scales are essential for effective policy
implementation (Hupe, 2014: 177; see also D€
orrenb€
acher and Mastenbroek, 2019;
Egeberg and Trondal, 2016; Shore and Tosun, 2019; Thomann et al., 2019; Tosun
et al., 2019a; Trein et al., 2019).
This empirical study acknowledges the merits of the literature in public policy
and administration and uses it as a starting point for developing a theoretical
argument concerning coordination in multi-actor implementation arrangements
by borrowing from the literature on political economy (Hall and Soskice, 2001).
To achieve this goal, the study focuses on the scope of public–private actor coor-
dination, that is the share of private actors included in policy implementation
arrangements (Sager, 2006). We therefore examine the institutionalisation of
public–private partnerships, seeking to explain cross-country variation.
To assess public–private coordination empirically, we use an original dataset
that analyses the multi-actor implementation arrangements in place for the Youth
Guarantee in all 28 EU member states. Our research design comprises of two steps.
First, we conduct multivariate regression analyses to assess the plausibility of
hypotheses derived from the literature. Second, we inductively map the data to
gain further insights into the scope of public–private coordination. Our findings
show that there are differences in the extent to which the national governments
include private actors in their implementation arrangements for the Youth
Guarantee. The regression analyses support our argument originating from polit-
ical economy research, namely that hierarchical structures of employer coordina-
tion decrease the scope of private–public coordination. Conversely, higher
expenditures on active labour market policies (ALMPs) increase the scope of pri-
vate–public coordination. These results do not change even if we control for the
allocation of corresponding funds, the number of young people that are particu-
larly vulnerable to social exclusion, as well as the competencies of the public
380 Public Policy and Administration 36(3)
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