Includes bibliographical references and index.

1. Comparative Study of public and social services provision : definitional, conceptual and methodological frame / Hellmut Wollmann -- 2. The impact of EU law on local public service provision : competition and public service / Gérard Marćou -- 3. What impact have European Court of Justice decisions in the field of local public services provision? / Pierre Bauby and Mihaela Simlie -- 4. Delivering public services in the United Kingdom in a period of austerity / John McEldowney -- 5. Local government public service provision in France : diversification of management patterns and decentralization reforms / Gérard Marćou -- 6. Re-municipalisation revisited : long-term trends in the provision of local public services in Germany / Frank Bönker, Jens Libbe and Hellmut Wollmann -- 7. Local government and the market : the case of public services and care for the elderly in Sweden / Stig Montin -- 8. Local public services in Italy : still fragmentation / Giulio Citroni, Andrea Lippi and Stefania Profeti -- 9. Spanish municipal services delivery : an uncertain scenario / Jaume Magre Ferran and Esther Pano Puey -- 10. From municipal socialism to the sovereign debt crisis : Local Services in Greece 1980-2015 / Theodore Tsekos and Athanasia Triantafyllopoulou -- 11. Mixed system : transformation and current trends in the provision of local public services in the Czech and Slovak Republics / Juraj Nemec and Jana Soukopová -- 12. The evolution of local public services provision in Poland / Łukacs Mikuła and Marzena Walaszek -- 13. From municipalisation to centralism : changes in the Hungarian local public service delivery / Tamás M. Horváth -- 14. Local government and local public services in Croatia / Ivan Koprić, Anamarija Musa and Vedran Đulabić -- 15. Local service delivery in Turkey / Ulaş Bayraktar and Çağla Tansug -- 16. Local governments and the energy sector : a comparison of France, Iceland and the United Kingdom / Roselyn Allemand -- 17. Water Provision in France, Germany and Switzerland : between convergence and divergence / Eva Lieberherr, Claudine Viard and Carsten Herzberg -- 18. Hospital privatization in Germany and France : marketization without deregulation? / Tanja Klenk and Renate Reiter -- 19. Models of local public service delivery : privatisation, publicisation and the renaissance of the cooperative? / Hartmut Bauer, and Friedrich Markmann -- 20. Institutional variants of local utility services : evidence from several European countries / Giuseppe Grossi and Christoph Reichard -- 21. Public and social services in Europe : from public/municipal to private provision--and reverse? / Hellmut Wollmann.