Original scientific paper
https://doi.org/10.3935/zpfz.76.5.5
Public Procurement With a Purpose: Understanding the Shift Towards Social Responsibility
Eva Ružić
; Faculty of Law, University of Rijeka, Rijeka, Croatia
Abstract
Socially responsible public procurement (SRPP) has, over recent decades, been recognized as an important instrument for achieving broader societal objectives through public spending systems. Although the legal framework of the European Union has gradually enabled the integration of social criteria into public procurement procedures, their practical application remains uneven across Member States. This paper argues that the limited reach of SRPP cannot be attributed solely to shortcomings of positive law but rather reflects deeper structural tensions between administrative doctrines and models of the welfare state that have historically shaped public procurement. The paper combines normative legal analysis with a theoretical and doctrinal approach in order to explain the position of SRPP within the contemporary European framework. It traces the historical evolution of public procurement as a public policy instrument and its relationship with the development of the welfare state and the regulatory state. It further examines theories of the welfare state and administrative doctrines as an explanatory framework for divergent national approaches to SRPP. Attention is devoted to the European Union legal framework, especially the scope of the horizontal social clause as well as the role of soft law instruments in operationalizing social considerations. The paper ultimately proposes a conceptual framework for understanding SRPP as an instrument for the creation of public value. It concludes that the formal permissibility of social criteria is insufficient for their effective integration, and that the further development of SRPP requires a shift from a model of minimal legal compatibility towards one of institutionally supported implementation.
Keywords
socially responsible public procurement; administrative doctrines; welfare state; welfare state regimes; public value
Hrčak ID:
351906
URI
Publication date:
7.10.2026.
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