Brendstrup, S: Liberalizations of Electricity Sectors

After decades of shielding of public service sectors from competition things rapidly changed from the late 1980ies. Suddenly the question was no longer if public service sectors should be liberalized but how to do it most effectively. This however is a difficult question to answer. Looking at the liberalization of European Electriocity Sectors there are as many different solutions as nations. This book looks for a pattern in this variation. Introducing the concept of Sectoral Autonomy opens new possibilities to understand what happens when an external pressure to liberalize a public service sector is converted into internal, national, political processes. The concept is applied to a study of the German and Danish electricity sectors representing the most different ways of responding to the idea of liberalization. This variation in turn is analyzed in the ligth of Sectoral Autonomy, showing the same degree of variation as the degree of liberalization. In the last part of the book, the possibilities of appliying the concept to other countries and sectors is discussed.