Quasi Market Governance

Download or read book Quasi-market Governance written by Taco Brandsen and published by Boom Koninklijke Uitgevers. This book was released on 2004 with total page 226 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It is a natural human tendency to want the best of everything. The welfare state has improved the quality of life for many people by granting them a basic guaranteed income, access to good health care and affordable housing. The well-being of people in the Western world has been successfully wrestled from the clutches of unfettered market forces. In recent times, though, policymakers and public managers have been eager to make more use of the potential of markets. Supposedly, competition weeds out the inefficient and keeps people alert. This is why there have been attempts to combine elements of market, state and/ or private non-profit provision in systems of quasi-market governance. Research over the past years has greatly advanced our knowledge of the experimental constructs of quasi-markets. However, it has also shown how little we still know about their inner dynamics. The source of much confusion is the habit of looking at these new systems through the lens of old ones. This book offers a fresh approach, drawing upon both original research and existing evidence to show how the different elements of the quasi-market influence each other. It focuses specifically on the crucial introduction phase of quasi-markets, a phase which can have fundamental and lasting effects on the system’s future performance. The book concludes with an assessment of conditions that must be met for quasi-market governance to be effective. Quasi-Market Governance will be of interest to scholars and professionals as well as students in the fields of economics and politics.