Denmark: The Incremental Way Towards a Deep-Seated Marketization of Service Delivery

Contemporary delivery of municipal park and road services in Denmark is, in sharp contrast to the 1980s, highly marketized. In-house providers are operating as semi-autonomous and ‘corporate-like’ units, a variety of contracting models are applied, private delivery is substantial and mixed delivery with direct competition between the public and private is widespread. This chapter traces how the changes towards a ‘deep-seated marketization’ came about. The changes are found to be incremental and historically driven by a pragmatic policy approach to who should deliver services with substantial degrees of freedom for municipalities. However, a steady push, in particular driven by right-wing governments, in policies and administrative initiatives including an increasing adherence to more cohesive policy instruments has sustained the development of a wide-ranging and deep-seated marketization of service delivery at the municipal level. Furthermore, the characteristics of contemporary marketization are found to resemble classical doctrines in the new public management.