Agencification and marketization in Danish and Swedish state administration - patterns of adoption

We analyze similarities and differences in the adoption of marketization and agencificationpractices in state administration in the two Nordic countries: Denmark and Sweden. Based ona literature review and on contrasting notions of a global management reform movementenforcing more similarity (Meyer, Boli, Thomas, and Ramirez 1997) and the notion of localpath dependencies and tradition enforcing difference (March 1994; Premfors 1998) weelaborate hypotheses concerning the adoption of agencification practices in the state agenciesof the two countries. The empirical analysis is based on survey data generated 2008-2009 inthe state administration of the two countries. The survey instrument was largely elaboratedfrom the COBRA questions (Verhoest 2009).Our preliminary findings indicate that agencification has been widely adopted in bothcountries, while Danish state agencies tend to have adopted significantly more practicesrelated to marketization than their Swedish equivalents. We discuss the possibleinterpretation of our findings