This paper analyses the arduous path towards implementing Public Private Partnership (PPP) as a governance mode increasingly ‘en vogue’ in many political programs worldwide. As current literature on PPP strongly features an Anglo-Saxon bias recent experiences from Austria with a continental-European legalistic Rechtsstaat tradition are presented. Based on our analysis of a recently failed PPP project we outline that beside factors put forward by rationalchoice approaches the dynamics of such partnerships are also shaped by normative and cultural-cognitive factors as theorized by neoinstitutional approaches. We thereby understand PPPs not only as a distinct, innovative organizational arrangement but also as a policy tool with symbolic meanings and underlying premises. In the final part general implications regarding the relevance of these experiences for transformational countries are outlined.