A KÖZSZOLGÁLTATÁSOK POLITIKAI ÉRTELMEZÉSÉRŐL
ON THE POLITICAL INTERPRETATION OF THE MEANING OF PUBLIC SERVICES

Summary/Abstract: The neoliberal reforms of public services have provoked lively political and academic debates about how far the criterion of market efficiency can and should be applied on public services. The present paper argues that the organizational and institutional choices about public services have political consequences in a sense that the efficiency criterion is not external to them. Based on Bruno Frey’s motivation theory, the literature of institutional trust and the collective action theory of Elinor Ostrom, the paper argues that communities can organize efficiently their public services according to different mechanisms, assuming that the necessary normative and descriptive frames are present in the society. Among those mechanisms the collective coordination – alone or with other coordination schemes – might be an effective way to organize and secure public services.

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