Understanding European drinking water services remunicipalisation: A state of literature analysis

The article examines the state of literature on remunicipalisation of water services in Europe starting from three basic questions: how this phenomenon is framed, what evidence is available and how much the analytical perspectives most used in analysing such a phenomenon are fit for its understanding. Literature shows that water remunicipalisation remains an under-theorized issue and its knowledge results scarce. We therefore propose the concept of local service restructuring to emphasise the micro-scale peculiarities of the remunicipalised water regimes. After having framed the phenomenon at issue in the European historical-geographical context and have systematized the current evidence, we suggest to fill the knowledge gap on water remunicipalisation in Eurozone through the fulfilment of in depth case studies with a multilevel perspective of analysis.