Keeping the Lights On: Citizen Service Centers in Municipal Amalgamations

TY - JOUR

T1 - Keeping the Lights On: Citizen Service Centers in Municipal Amalgamations

AU - Bhatti, Yosef

AU - Olsen, Asmus Leth

AU - Pedersen, Lene Holm

PY - 2011/1

Y1 - 2011/1

N2 - How do you make major reforms go down? This was the central question many local politicians faced when implementing amalgamations in the 2007 local government reform in Denmark. An African proverb says that the best way to eat the elephant standing in your path is to cut it up into little pieces. This strategy was also popular in amalgamated municipalities, where the potential loss of closeness was a major challenge to the citizens. This is demonstrated by a study of the diffusion of a new organizational form to organize social service delivery by citizen service centers (CSCs) in a reform context. Empirical evidence from a Poisson regression highlights the importance of the former municipal structure as a determining factor for the prevalence of CSCs in the new municipal structure. Using process tracing, it is argued that the importance of the former structure in the diffusion process reflects that CSCs are employed "to keep to lights on" in the old town halls.

AB - How do you make major reforms go down? This was the central question many local politicians faced when implementing amalgamations in the 2007 local government reform in Denmark. An African proverb says that the best way to eat the elephant standing in your path is to cut it up into little pieces. This strategy was also popular in amalgamated municipalities, where the potential loss of closeness was a major challenge to the citizens. This is demonstrated by a study of the diffusion of a new organizational form to organize social service delivery by citizen service centers (CSCs) in a reform context. Empirical evidence from a Poisson regression highlights the importance of the former municipal structure as a determining factor for the prevalence of CSCs in the new municipal structure. Using process tracing, it is argued that the importance of the former structure in the diffusion process reflects that CSCs are employed "to keep to lights on" in the old town halls.

U2 - 10.1080/03643107.2011.533617

DO - 10.1080/03643107.2011.533617

M3 - Journal article

SN - 0364-3107

VL - 35

SP - 3

EP - 19

JO - Administration in Social Work

JF - Administration in Social Work

IS - 1

ER -