The provision of high-quality local public services and infrastructures is a key factor in addressing social and economic inequalities, yet decades of privatisation and outsourcing have led to worsening quality, higher costs, reduced accessibility, and less efficient delivery. In response to these shortcomings, which have been highlighted and exacerbated by recent crises, an emerging pro-public movement is advocating for democratic public ownership and control over local essential goods and services across a wide range of sectors. Research has mainly focussed on local deprivatisation in the form of remunicipalisations, but there is an interesting trend to set up new publicly and/or collectively owned enterprises, which we have termed ‘municipalisations’. Municipalisations fill critical gaps in local public provision, usually addressing a specific set of inequities (such as undersupply, lack of access, unaffordability) to a range of services from childcare, renewable energy production, broadband services, and even banking. A key resource for this ongoing research is the Public Futures Database, PFD, a collaborative initiative between the University of Glasgow and the Transnational Institute (TNI). This project aims to explore the potential for such municipalisation initiatives to create more equitable, just, and democratic public goods and services at the local and regional level.

To achieve this aim, the project has three objectives; firstly, to explore how municipalisation can be positioned theoretically with regard to key alternative local democratic ownership debates and literatures, secondly, to advance our empirical knowledge and understanding of the diverse landscape of municipalisation, and thirdly, to formulate critical policy recommendations to address the limitations of and challenges faced by municipalisations. Utilising a two-stage research design, the project will undertake a mapping exercise using the PFD, followed by in-depth case study research. The project will produce outcomes of social, public and policy value, alongside academic and policy focussed outputs and impacts.

Supervisory Team:

• First Supervisor: Dr Franziska Paul, franziska.paul@glasgow.ac.uk
• Second Supervisor: Professor Andrew Cumbers, andrew.cumbers@glasgow.ac.uk