What's the deal? Standardizing contracts for public-private partnerships

Over the past decades, governments have increasingly welcomed private financiers and investors to take care of the provision of public infrastructure. As a result, the popularity of public-private partnerships (PPPs) has grown. A public-private partnership is an approach to the construction and maintenance of infrastructure in which the private sector finances a project, takes on an expanded role for facility design, construction, operations and/or maintenance, and bears a considerable amount of risk. Public-private partnerships are packed with management challenges. Many difficulties turn up during the contracting process, which typically involves onerous negotiations. In order to remedy these challenges, governments are showing increasing interest in facilitating the contracting process. The creation and use of standard contracts is one of the measures that governments have recently been taking. This thesis improves our understanding of this specific measure. It focuses on public infrastructure projects in Flanders, Belgium. The research provides insights into the struggle of governments with the governance and complexity of PPP. Furthermore, this thesis provides evidence to suggest that the use of standard contracts is no guarantee for swifter contractual negotiations. Policy and politics are important factors in the world of standardization, and it is shown that there is more to using a standard contract than applying it to any type of asset in different contexts. Finally, the study unveils the learning process of governments as they gradually move toward a standard contract for road infrastructure projects. Rather than using model contracts as a means to ensure that public sector interests are served, the government continuously tested whether contractual clauses were in line with market practice. This thesis does not intend to determine which aspects are most promising or important in regard to successfully creating and using standard contracts. Instead, it provides different perspectives on standardization and shows that it is not nearly a straightforward or objective practice. As such, this study indicates the need to apply a more critical perspective and not just take for granted the propagated perks of standardization.