Untangling the impact of Europeanization and globalization on national utility liberalization: a systematic process analysis of two Danish reforms

Abstract

This article uses the liberalization of the Danish electricity and telecommunication sectors to examine the impact of globalization and Europeanization on institutional reforms like utility liberalizations. The reform processes in the two sectors constitute a puzzle with very similar circumstances but different processes. This makes it possible to the test a hypothesis common to key theories on the impact of Europeanization and globalization, namely that the impact of external pressure increases, the stronger, more unambiguous and comprehensive the pressure is. Based on the variation in the level of external pressure between the Danish electricity and telecommunication sectors, the hypothesis is tested a in systematic process analysis. The hypothesis is supported and can account for the puzzle. The article contributes to the literature on institutional reform and liberalization by testing the direct effect of external pressure, which has received insufficient attention in the literature.

Keywords:

• Europeanization
• globalization
• ideas
• institutional reform
• liberalization
• utilities

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I thank the two anonymous referees for helpful comments.