Modeling political mimetic isomorphism versus economic and quality factors in local government privatizations

Abstract

Numerous studies have considered the economic impact and political influence of privatization. However, the theoretical approaches previously applied to model privatization, whether economic or political, have not obtained robust results. To address this question, we present a new political approach, based on mimetic isomorphism, which enables us to more accurately define the relationship between privatization, political theory and economic aspects. This new focus, termed political mimetic isomorphism, hypothesizes that the privatization of public services is influenced by an imitation effect between neighboring municipalities that share a common political ideology. In our study, this approach is applied, using geostatistical tools and logistic regression analysis with spatial variables, to a sample of municipalities that privatized their water and/or waste collection services during the period 2014–2019. The results obtained demonstrate the validity of the theoretical model of political mimetic isomorphism and show that this factor exerts a stronger influence on privatization than certain economic variables.