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Mihov, M (2020) Making it fit: The role of institutional work in the transplantation of the anglo-saxon public-private partnership model to Germany, Unpublished PhD Thesis, , University of London, King's College.
- Type: Thesis
- Keywords: political economy; partnership; private finance initiative; public infrastructure; Europe; Germany; UK; United Kingdom; private sector; interview
- ISBN/ISSN:
- URL: https://www.proquest.com/docview/2497479113
- Abstract:
In the 1990s, the United Kingdom (UK) developed the Private Finance Initiative (PFI), a form of long-term cooperation between the public and private sectors for the joint planning, delivery and maintenance of public building infrastructure. In the years that followed, this model has been a source of inspiration for many countries in Europe, including for Germany. In fact, in the early 2000s German policymakers attempted to establish a Public-Private Partnership (PPP) model based on the UK PFI. However, almost two decades later the German PPP model significantly differs from what the early adopters had imagined. Therefore, the question arises: to what extent have German national institutional idiosyncrasies adapted the Anglo-Saxon PPP concept? Combining the literatures on institutional transplantation (De Jong, Lalenis and Mamadouh, 2002) and institutional work (Lawrence and Suddaby, 2006), this thesis provides a novel theoretical framework to understand the impact of bottom-up agency on transplantation processes. Based on 52 in-depth interviews with German public and private infrastructure actors and a variety of supporting documents, this thesis argues that institutionally embedded actors in Germany have transformed the Anglo-Saxon PPP model to make it fit the German political economy. Contrary to the institutional transplantation view, the adoption of the PPP transplant in Germany has not been the result of policymakers piecing together a suitable PPP model; but the outcome of various activities of multiple public and private actors aiming to create, maintain and disrupt institutions in the German public infrastructure field. This thesis reveals that the transplantation process of PPPs in Germany occurred in three distinct phases - implantation, irritation and transcendence - during which key actors performed regulative, normative and cognitive work sequentially. This sequence of institutional work generated a PPP adoption process with unintended effects, ultimately resulting in a hybrid version of the Anglo-Saxon PPP model in Germany. The findings encourage further research on bottom-up activities of embedded actors to better understand the institutional dynamics of PPP adoption and more broadly, of transplantation processes.