Easier Said than Done: An Analysis of the Length of Time between the Remunicipalisation Decision and its Implementation

Since the early 2000s the terms ‘re-municipalisation’ and ‘reverse privatisation’ have entered the lexicon as more and more cases emerge of governments at local/municipal and national levels taking ownership of assets and services that had previously been privatised or outsourced. Following early instances of re-municipalisation in cities such as Potsdam and Grenoble more and more cases of re-municipalisation have occurred. Following a study of the experience with the re-municipalisation of water services in France and energy activities in Germany (Hall et al, 2013) concluded that the evidence suggested a strong trend in this direction. This conclusion has subsequently been borne out by data provided by Kishimoto and Petitjean (2017). They reported the results of a cross-country survey which found 835 cases of re-municipalisation in seven public services sectors worldwide. A feature of the data is that in several cases there is a significant lag between the decision to re-municipalise and the implementation of the decision. This paper seeks to examine the relationship between this lag and features of the re-municipalisation including: (1) Type –Municipalisation or Re-municipalisation; (2) Method of re-municipalisation; (3) Size; (4) Level of jurisdiction (state/municipal/province); (5) Sector, among others