Landscapes of Remunicipalization
A Critical Literature Review
David A. McDonald (Queen’s University)
After four decades of stalemated debates about privatization there is a newer and more refreshing conversation on the block: remunicipalization. Also known as “reverse privatization” and “insourcing,” remunicipalization refers to a process of returning services back to state ownership and management after a period of private sector control. More than 1600 cases of remunicipalization in over 70 countries have been recorded, in services such as water, electricity, health care, transportation and waste management. It can happen at various scales, for diverse reasons, and often involves a complex web of state institutions and non-governmental actors, representing one of the most intriguing shifts in public policy and grassroots activism of the last 20 years.
This phenomenon has been accompanied by a rapid growth in academic research and writing on the topic, documenting remunicipalization efforts and assessing the dynamics that have led to its development. As this body of literature has expanded, so too has the attention paid to the writing itself, with analysts reflecting on the implications of its accumulated knowledge and appraising the relative merits of its competing claims. This is to be expected of the academic enterprise, of course, and is a sign of a rapidly developing field of study.
It will come as little surprise then that the literature on remunicipalization has become “highly fragmented,” ranging from energetically boosterish to inquisitorially skeptical. Writing and research on the topic has thus become as fascinating as the subject matter itself.
Some see remunicipalization as a powerful and persistent drift towards democratized forms of public services: a “big wave,” “a growing trend” and a “profound change” that has “heightened a sense of optimism” about the potential for more progressive forms of public services. Others question the quantitative and qualitative nature of these claims, asking whether remunicipalization simply represents a long-standing pendulum-like swing between public and private service delivery driven by mundane forms of bureaucratic rationality that have informed decision making on service delivery mechanisms for decades. This latter set of research tends to question whether remunicipalization is mere “hype,” with some analysts convinced that “there is no evidence of a comprehensive (re)municipalization.”
This brief synopsis is an oversimplification of the debate, but it captures what some see as a highly polarized discourse. In reality, there is considerable diversity in the literature, with multiple competing conceptual frameworks and methodological approaches, making any singular description of remunicipalization debates impossible and misleading, with as much consensus in the literature as there is disagreement.
It is therefore important to systematically identify and dissect this growing body of writing to better assess its multiple fault lines and crossovers. Previous attempts at such a literature review have been made, but they have not captured the full scope and character of writing on the topic due to a combination of small sample sizes, sectoral/geographic restrictions and narrow definitions of what constitutes “academic” publications, all of which have contributed to an unrepresentative interpretation of research on the topic.
This paper, by contrast, includes the full breadth of academic writing on remunicipalization to date, offering a complete overview of the sectoral, geographic, chronological, methodological and analytical characteristics of the literature, accompanied by a more fulsome discussion of the conceptual and methodological tools employed. A total of 252 papers are included in this review, representing all the published academic writing available on the topic as of October 2022. A broad cross-section of articles is cited in this paper to provide readers with a representative sampling of the literature, along with a complete bibliography of sources in the attached Appendix. It should also be noted that articles published since late 2022 are not cited here for the sake of consistency.
It is not the intent of this paper to take sides in this debate. The aim is to highlight the nuanced political and epistemological natures of remunicipalization, and how these are interpreted in different ways, with compelling arguments and evidence available to support a wide range of claims. The paper describes these competing theoretical and methodological positions, examining their strengths and weaknesses and discussing their implications for future research, policy making and grassroots activism. As such, the paper offers a “critical review” of different schools of thought to help readers understand the assumptions and methods that inform the debates, highlighting their potential overlaps, contradictions, controversies, and inconsistencies.
Several conclusions can be drawn from this assessment. First, there are fundamental and often incompatible theoretical differences between schools of thought on how and why remunicipalization happens and what its outcomes have been. Second, these differences are based in part on choice of research methods, with strong correlations between methodological approaches and empirical results. Third, there are strong overlaps between empirical and normative conclusions, with perceptions of what remunicipalization should look like often contributing to an interpretive bias that can influence research outcomes.
This compartmentalization of research runs the risk of overlooking potential common ground, creating echo chambers of opinion that can discount the insights and evidence of different schools of thought. There are also notable gaps in our knowledge, including the need to more research in sectors other than water and electricity, a lack of research in countries outside of Europe and the US (especially in the Global South), and the need for a broader range of thematic topics to widen the scope of investigation and to introduce new perspectives on the debate (such as gendered and racialized dimensions of remunicipalization).
The paper begins with a description of how the data base was created for this literature review as well as a summary of its key characteristics (including the sectoral and geographic focus of existing research). It then identifies and explains different theoretical orientations in the writing, followed by a discussion of the ways in which research methods and conceptual “bias” appear to contribute to a factionalization of the debate. A discussion of lessons learned (including implications for broader urban studies) is followed by concluding remarks on research gaps and future research needs.
David A. McDonald is Professor of Global Development Studies at Queen's University, Canada, and Director of the Municipal Services Project.