Does Outsourcing Reduce Public Scrutiny Toward Elected Officials?: Insights From US Municipal Water Management
研究美国城市水务服务外包如何影响公众对民选官员的关注和意见，发现外包和回收服务都会减少媒体关注，但外包后公众意见更两极分化，且高程度外包使公众将可持续问题与官员关联。
ABSTRACT Amidst 21st‐century climate‐related threats, municipal elected officials (EOs) may outsource public services to third parties to avoid the political costs of adopting “unpopular” sustainability policies—a strategy known as political decoupling. However, decoupling raises accountability concerns and may not improve sustainability, leading some municipalities to “recouple” services. To help understand the political impacts of these decisions, we assess how public scrutiny toward EOs in US municipalities changes after varying degrees of coupling in the water provision sector (i.e., how much service delivery shifts away from or toward municipal oversight). Analysis of local media coverage shows public attention toward EOs decreases after higher degrees of decoupling and recoupling, public opinion becomes polarized toward EOs after decouplings, and the public links sustainability‐related issues to EOs after high degrees of decoupling. The results highlight how reforming public services relates to political accountability‐related factors and raise critical questions about the political decoupling strategy.