Privatized Policy‐Making: Administrative and Consociational Types of Implementation in Regional Economic Policy in Switzerland*

Abstract

ABSTRACTThis paper reports results of a research project dealing with the role of private actors and semi‐public organizations in inter‐organizational networks of policy implementation. The first part addresses more general and longer‐term issues of how and why mixed public and private implementation networks are generated. The central part of the article describes the results of a case study of regional economic development policy in Switzerland by comparing two models of implementation: an administrative one specifically attuned to the interests of the policy's target (firms), and a ‘consociational’ one emphasizing the participation of regional economic interest groups. Using this comparison we try to evaluate the impact of institutional configurations on policy output.