What Does the Marketization of the State Mean for Democratic Government in Advanced Capitalist Countries? the Missing Political Economy of the State

After thirty years of pro-market reforms of the state directed at creating 'better government for less money' the evidence from the most reformed states, such as the UK, points to frequently opposing outcomes: micromanagement instead of meta-regulation; rising costs instead of increased efficiency; the dominance of monopolies and oligopolies instead of competitive provision. This essay argues that the existing state literatures nevertheless fail to address the most consequential question that arises from these trends, namely ‘what happens to the democratic autonomy of the state to act when the institutional capacity of the state becomes 'hybridised' or fragmented between public and private business actors?’ The essay shows that at the macro level there is a continuous ontological debate between political sociology, international political economy and normative democratic theory that typically fails to problematize the state itself. Meanwhile at the micro level we have empirical description from the public administration literature or formal modelling from public finance scholarship which is focused on individual policy domains or administrative ‘technologies’ and their policy consequences. What we consequently lack are meso-level approaches that capture the downstream institutional consequences of hybridization and what these new institutional politics mean for the state’s continuing democratic autonomy to govern. The essay proposes the deployment of policy-feedback approaches, informed by economic theory, as a solution.