Policy coordination through organizational reform: Acceptance in the multi-level system of Swiss water provision

In an age of austerity and a warming climate, public services face challenges to perform. Re-organization, and particularly increased coordination, might strengthen performance. Yet the question arises which re-organizations might be accepted. To address this, we systematically analyze which organizations for water provision decision-makers and stakeholders across different levels of government in Switzerland accept. We find that the stakeholders and decision-makers prefer organizations that involve coordination between municipalities. The actors reject the organizations under private law. Distinguishing between different actor levels reveals a distinct pattern, mainly related to the level of responsibility: the national (Confederation) and regional actors prefer only coordination across municipalities. The local actors are overall rather positive about all organizations (expect for those under private law), but prefer the more decentralized and non-autonomous organizations. The Swiss water sector provides an interesting context to assess organizations and their reforms. Switzerland has decentralized water provision, based on the principle of subsidiarity and direct public management. However, current developments like urbanization, aging infrastructure and natural disasters put the municipal water providers under pressure and challenge the municipalities to re-organize: to join forces and to become (more) professionalized, through legal, financial and democratic autonomy. Switzerland is furthermore an interesting case to study acceptance, as direct-democratic instruments and the legal system create a multitude of veto-points where (local) decision-makers and stakeholders can block an organizational reform and perpetuate the status quo. The criterion of acceptance seems to be (almost) as important as the fulfillment of legally defined goals in such a system.