The issue of privatisation is not new. It has been debated since the end of the 1970s following a major financial crisis and the subsequent ‘crisis’ of the public sector. The once celebrated welfare state that has been a core institution in many industrialised European countries has been under various forms of pressure: financial, social, managerial, but also of political legitimacy. Ideologically, the welfare state has been challenged by (neo)liberals who have seen it as not only financially unsustainable, but also antithetical to the goals of economic efficiency and the pursuit of personal liberties. Its operations have also been attacked by political pragmatists who have seen its cumbersome bureaucratic nature as increasingly problematic. The answer for this latter group was not (necessarily) privatisation but the increased diversity of providers (often all state providers) competing for resources in order to increase the state’s responsiveness and effectiveness.
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