7 - CONCLUSION

Summary

This book has laid out, both theoretically and empirically, the way markets in public services operate and the political dynamics behind them. These claims both contribute to our substantive understanding of markets and engage in broader debates about emerging political dynamics in advanced industrial countries. The first section of this concluding chapter looks at these broader contributions. The second section turns to the question of their generalizability, examining the politics of market reforms in health care across the OECD. The concluding section argues that these claims can inform our thinking about markets in an era of credit crises and newly assertive government.

THE MAIN CONTRIBUTIONS OF THE BOOK

The following sections outline three major contributions of this book: its attention to markets in the public sector, the theorization of market variation, and the discussion of the partisan politics of market reforms.

Markets in public services matter

Markets in public services have dramatically reshaped the lives of citizens, producers, and the state. In the early 1980s, despite variation in health care, education, and care systems across the OECD, they shared a number of common features. Central governments often played a strong role in setting budgets and basic regulations but the lack of information technology, detailed measurement of outcomes, or professional management, limited their power to monitor what actually happened on the ground.