Conference on Regulatory Governance between Global and Local ECPR Standing Group on Regulatory Governance

Barcelona, 25-27 June 2014

Exploring Ideas on the Regulation of Local Public Services: A Q-Methodology Study

of Elected Public Officers in Italy

Alberto Asquer

Lecturer of Public Policy and Management Department of Financial and Management Studies

SOAS, University of London aa144@soas.ac.uk

•  Perceived limitations of new instititutionalist approaches in explaining sources of policy change

•  Importance of ideas, argumentation, and discourse in the policy process

•  Importance of agency vis-à-vis structure (structural-configurational features of the policy system)

•  Methodological issue(s): How can we access the subjectivities of agents (in a transparent and systematic way)?

1. Introduction

•  Regulation of local public services is a policy arena where stability and change of regulatory regimes can be cast as an explanandum

•  See, instances of regulatory policy reversals like the re-municipalisation of water provision in Grenoble and Paris

•  If ideas are relevant to help explaining sources of policy stability and change, what do elected public officers think about the regulation of local public services?

1. Introduction

Q methodology (Stephenson 1953) i) Definition of the topic (concourse)

ii) Construction of a set of statements about the concourse

iii) Selection of a sample of statements (Q sample) (N: 30-60)

iv) Selection of a sample of individuals (P sample) (N: 25-75), who sort the statements (Q sorts)

v) Analysis of the Q sorts through a by-person factor analysis and interpretation of the results

2. Methodology

In the present study: i) Topic is regulation of local public services

ii) The concourse is described by about 120 statements, drawn from interviews and documents

iii) Q sample counts 30 sentences

iv) P sample counts 33 respondents from 584 invitations sent to elected public officers of 20 municipalities in Italy, who sorted the statements with FlashQ software (Braehler and Hackert, 2007)

v) Analysis was conducted with PQ Method (Schmolck, 2012)

2. Methodology

The Q sample:

2. Methodology

The P sample:

2. Methodology

Online sorting:

2. Methodology

Factor matrix with defining sorts (in bold):

3. Analysis

Factor Q sort values for each statement

3. Analysis

Factor Q sort values for each statement:

3. Analysis

Factor 1 defining statements: “Local public services should be provided by full public ownership firms” “Local public services should be managed according to principles of solidarity and of protection of the most vulnerable users” “Tariffs of local public services should be kept under the control of public authorities to ensure affordability” “The attainment of profit bears negative effects on the quality of local public services”

(“The hard-core state interventionist”)

4. Discussion

Factor 2 defining statements: “Local public services provide an attractive opportunity for private investors” “Local public authorities tend to interfere in the management of local utilities rather than supervising and regulating their conduct” “Local public authorities do not possess adequate knowledge, competences, and capabilities to regulate the conduct of local utilities” “Local public authorities care more about protecting the interests of local utilities than of the users”

(“The denigrative of the public”)

4. Discussion

Factor 3 defining statements: “Tariffs of local public services should be kept under the control of public authorities to ensure affordability” “Local public services should be managed according to principles of solidarity and of protection of the most vulnerable users” “Tariffs of local public services should cover full cost, including a fair return to capital invested” “Local public authorities do not adequately monitor service quality of local utilities”

(“The pragmatist”)

4. Discussion

Factor 4 defining statements: “Local infrastructure development should be primarily financed by public funds” “Local public services should be provided by full public ownership firms” “Local public services should be managed according to principles of solidarity and of protection of the most vulnerable users” “Tariffs of local public services should be kept under the control of public authorities to ensure affordability” “Local public services should be provided by mixed public-private ownership firms”

(“The cautious privatiser”)

4. Discussion

•  Evidence of variety of ideas on the regulation of local public services, but generally cautious towards private provision

•  Still we need to understand whether and how such variety of ideas matters in the regulatory policy process

•  Ideas need to be understood in relation to the the historical and institutional context where they originate

5. Conclusions

Thank you