The marketization of activation services: a modern panacea? Some lessons from the Dutch experience

The introduction of market mechanisms is a crucial part of the new modes of governance emerging EU-wide in order to modernize the public sector. This article focuses on the introduction of marketization in the provision of activation services. The article draws on the Dutch experience, where activation services have been provided by private for-profit companies for several years now. In the first part, the emergence of new modes of governance is put in the context of welfare-state reforms aimed at making the welfare state more activating. Then, the marketization of activation services in the Netherlands is discussed as part of a wider institutional-reform process. Next, an assessment is made, based on several empirical sources, of the alleged advantages of the introduction of market mechanisms in the provision of social services. In the conclusion we argue that the effects of marketization strongly depend on the wider institutional and social-policy context in which it is embedded.