Since the beginning of the 1980s the role of government has been discussed in the Netherlands and several other Western countries. In the Netherlands this discussion has led to severe changes in the structures and activities of several governmental organizations, particularly since 1985. Deregulation has been introduced, which has meant that, generally speaking, certain laws and rules have become less detailed or totally abolished. Moreover, there has been a tendency to introduce new organizational structures in governmental organizations. These new organizational structures could mean that certain tasks are relinquished, or that the way of organizing activities is changed. A general characteristic of these changes in organizational structures, which can take different forms and/or differ in specific details, is that governmental organizations are now governed in a less centralized way. The general concept of autonomization will be used in this paper to denote the different forms of decentralization. In general, autonomization of public organizations means that the political top management’s direct control of certain tasks or activities will be diminished. External autonomization implies that, legally speaking, an independent organization comes into existence; and the politicians’ responsibilities for the organization are diminished. In the case of internal autonomization the organization remains part of its parent organization, although it gains more freedom to conduct its own business. The political top management retains formal responsibility for the activities of the internally autonomized organization. Internal autonomization includes various forms of what is traditionally termed decentralization or divisionalization. Forms of external autonomization include, for example, privatization, contractorization (contracting-out) and the founding of a public corporation. So, autonomization comprises diverging forms of decentralization and internal and external contracting, of which privatization may be seen as the ...