透過契約外包，提高政府效率、擴大民間參與作為號召的民營化運動，在當代福利服務改革的過程中扮演了很重要的角色，它同時也對社會工作產生了許多影響。本文盼望藉由地方政府相關人員的訪談指出作為工具來使用的民營化措施，它在台灣實踐過程中恰恰與西方「代理人理論」中預期藉此限制官僚自主性的期待相左。換言之，台灣的福利民營化非但沒有減少政府介入的範圍，反而加大了官僚行政裁量的空間。對此，我們認為饒富興味，有必要特別指出來。 The unexpected consequences of social service privatization in Taiwan：The preliminary explanation of “Bureaucratic Autonomy”of local governmentsAbstract Since 1980s, the movement of privatization has been very influential to the re-organization of social service system in Taiwan. Through social service contracting, the central as well as the local governments have contracted out various social service programs to the non-profit organizations and even some commercial firms to deliver direct services to the clients and local residents. In this paper, we try to explore whether the privatization of social services has shrunk the power of self–determination of the local bureaucracy, as the “agency theory” argued. However, through interviewing with the officers of the local governments, we find that the process of social service privatization in the local governments, on the contrary, even extend the power of government intervention into the third sector. The initial finding is interesting and worth further exploration and discussion.
