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

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. Son numerosos los estudios que han considerado el impacto economico y politico sobre la decision de privatizacion. Sin embargo, los enfoques teoricos aplicados anteriormente a los modelos de privatizacion, tanto economicos como politicos, no proporcionan unos resultados concluyentes. Para abordar esta cuestion, en este trabajo se presenta un nuevo enfoque teorico en el que enmarcar las decisiones de privatizacion, basado en el isomorfismo mimetico, el cual permite definir con mayor precision las relaciones existentes entre la privatizacion, la teoria politica y el ambito economico. Este nuevo enfoque, denominado Isomorfismo Mimetico Politico, plantea la hipotesis de que la privatizacion de los servicios publicos esta influenciada por un efecto de imitacion entre municipios vecinos que comparten una ideologia politica. Para abordar este enfoque se han aplicado herramientas geoestadisticas y modelos espaciales econometricos a una muestra de municipios espanoles que han privatizado sus servicios de agua o basura durante el periodo 2014-2019. Los resultados obtenidos demuestran la validez del modelo teorico del Isomorfismo Mimetico Politico, y muestran que este factor ejerce sobre la privatizacion una mayor influencia que ciertas variables economicas.