Catching up with the trailblazer or the many houses of marketization? Comparing contemporary marketization among Scandinavian and English Local Governments

Marketization has profoundly reshaped public service delivery but how far has marketization been reshaped by its implementation across different countries? We compare models and features of contemporary marketization across local governments in one trailblazer (England) and three reluctant reform countries (Scandinavia). Within the same service context, local park and road services, the comparison addresses how and why contemporary marketization diverges (or converges). We contribute to the literature on marketization and public sector reforms where few comparative studies have focused on local governments and utilized quantitative survey-based methods. Overall, we find that contemporary marketization is best understood as the many houses of marketization. Our trailblazer is still leading global reform developments by a move from conventional new public management (NPM) models of marketization toward post-NPM models while our (not so) reluctant reformers either have taking a clear lead in the implementation of conventional NPM models or are still characterized by a degree of pre-NPM models.