The Political Economy of Privatization in Rich Democracies

The Political Economy of Privatization in Rich Democracies
Author: Herbert Obinger
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 156
Release: 2016-01-28
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0191648434

Almost all advanced democracies have launched significant privatization programs over the last three decades. However, while there was a global run into privatization, substantial cross-national differences in the divesture of state-owned enterprises can be observed. This book focuses on the political economy of privatization, and addresses the questions 'What are the driving forces behind this development and how can the variation be explained?' which are of both theoretical and empirical interest. While the topic itself is not new, the existing comparative literature on the political economy of privatization suffers from at least two major shortcomings: First, recent macro-quantitative analysis in political science and economics has only focused on material privatization; formal privatization has hitherto been neglected due to an absence of data, even though this type of privatization is of eminent relevance in the public utility sectors. Second, most of the empirical studies in this area treat countries as independent units. In reality, however, policy decisions are likely to be interdependent. Policy decisions taken in one country influence the decision-making process in others. Given these shortcomings in the existing literature, the idea of this volume is to supply a fresh and comprehensive overview of the political economy of privatization using a new data set, the REST database. The empirical analysis covers 20 OECD countries in the period between 1980 and the advent of the global economic crisis in 2008. The recent economic crisis provides a good opportunity to take stock of the changing role of government in economic over the last three decades.

The Political Economy of Privatization in Rich Democracies

The Political Economy of Privatization in Rich Democracies
Author: Herbert Obinger
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 156
Release: 2016
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0199669686

This book focuses on the political economy of privatization, and addresses the questions 'What are the driving forces behind this development and how can the variation be explained?' which are of both theoretical and empirical interest. The volume addresses the political economy of privatization in advanced democracies in the last 30 years.

The Privatization of Everything

The Privatization of Everything
Author: Donald Cohen
Publisher: The New Press
Total Pages: 360
Release: 2021-11-23
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1620976625

The book the American Prospect calls “an essential resource for future reformers on how not to govern,” by America’s leading defender of the public interest and a bestselling historian “An essential read for those who want to fight the assault on public goods and the commons.” —Naomi Klein A sweeping exposé of the ways in which private interests strip public goods of their power and diminish democracy, the hardcover edition of The Privatization of Everything elicited a wide spectrum of praise: Kirkus Reviews hailed it as “a strong, economics-based argument for restoring the boundaries between public goods and private gains,” Literary Hub featured the book on a Best Nonfiction list, calling it “a far-reaching, comprehensible, and necessary book,” and Publishers Weekly dubbed it a “persuasive takedown of the idea that the private sector knows best.” From Diane Ravitch (“an important new book about the dangers of privatization”) to Heather McGhee (“a well-researched call to action”), the rave reviews mirror the expansive nature of the book itself, covering the impact of privatization on every aspect of our lives, from water and trash collection to the justice system and the military. Cohen and Mikaelian also demonstrate how citizens can—and are—wresting back what is ours: A Montana city took back its water infrastructure after finding that they could do it better and cheaper. Colorado towns fought back well-funded campaigns to preserve telecom monopolies and hamstring public broadband. A motivated lawyer fought all the way to the Supreme Court after the state of Georgia erected privatized paywalls around its legal code. “Enlightening and sobering” (Rosanne Cash), The Privatization of Everything connects the dots across a wide range of issues and offers what Cash calls “a progressive voice with a firm eye on justice [that] can carefully parse out complex issues for those of us who take pride in citizenship.”

The Political Economy of Private Security

The Political Economy of Private Security
Author: Helge Staff
Publisher: LIT Verlag Münster
Total Pages:
Release:
Genre:
ISBN: 3643913524

The global growth of private security services signals a significant shift in the production of the most traditional good provided by modern nation states - security. This systematic mixed methods analysis, linking output- and process-oriented policy theories, shows patterns and mechanisms of how political factors - like party dominance - drive the development of private security policy and industry. Based in comparative policy analysis it asks, what accounts for the differences in the policies toward and the outcomes of private security between EU member states?

Life After Privatization

Life After Privatization
Author: Raj S. Chari
Publisher:
Total Pages: 304
Release: 2015
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0199658315

Life After Privatization offers a refreshing and original theoretical conceptualization of what happened to stateowned enterprises after they were privatized from the late 1970s onwards. Some privatized firms have become today's European and global giants, 'Alphas', merging with or acquiring other firms, whereas other firms, 'Betas', have been taken over by Alphas or other sectoral leaders. The book raises questions such as which privatized firms in the airline, automobile, and the electricity sectors in the UK, France, Germany, Italy and Spain are Alphas and Betas today? And why? Building on a variety of themes from both Political Science and Business Studies, it considers a comprehensive set of explanations both internal and external to the firm, to analyse why a firm may become an Alpha or a Beta. The evidence shows that while internal factors are important, the more external, political, factors are necessary and sufficient to explain why a firm becomes an Alpha or a Beta. This includes the impact of liberalization, the roles of states, and the actions of regulators that are lobbied by firms. Based on exhaustive evidence, Life After Privatization concludes with a novel inductive theory, which offers a significant step forward for social science scholars' and practitioners' understanding of the 'politics' businesses face in global markets.

The Political Economy of Democratic Decentralization

The Political Economy of Democratic Decentralization
Author: James Manor
Publisher: World Bank Publications
Total Pages: 152
Release: 1999
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN:

Nearly all countries worldwide are now experimenting with decentralization. Their motivation are diverse. Many countries are decentralizing because they believe this can help stimulate economic growth or reduce rural poverty, goals central government interventions have failed to achieve. Some countries see it as a way to strengthen civil society and deepen democracy. Some perceive it as a way to off-load expensive responsibilities onto lower level governments. Thus, decentralization is seen as a solution to many different kinds of problems. This report examines the origins and implications decentralization from a political economy perspective, with a focus on its promise and limitations. It explores why countries have often chosen not to decentralize, even when evidence suggests that doing so would be in the interests of the government. It seeks to explain why since the early 1980s many countries have undertaken some form of decentralization. This report also evaluates the evidence to understand where decentralization has considerable promise and where it does not. It identifies conditions needed for decentralization to succeed. It identifies the ways in which decentralization can promote rural development. And it names the goals which decentralization will probably not help achieve.

The Privatization of Education

The Privatization of Education
Author: Antoni Verger
Publisher: Teachers College Press
Total Pages: 393
Release: 2016
Genre: Education
ISBN: 0807774723

Education privatization is a global phenomenon that has crystallized in countries with very different cultural, political, and economic backgrounds. In this book, the authors examine how privatization policies are being adopted and why so many countries are engaging in this type of education reform. The authors explore the contexts, key personnel, and policy initiatives that explain the worldwide advance of the private sector in education, and identify six different paths toward education privatization—as a drastic state sector reform (e.g., Chile, the U.K.), as an incremental reform (e.g., the U.S.A.), in social-democratic welfare states, as historical public-private partnerships (e.g., Netherlands, Spain), as de facto privatization in low-income countries, and privatization via disaster. Book Features: The first comprehensive, in-depth investigation of the political economy of education privatization at a global scale.An analysis of the different strategies, discourses, and agents that have contributed to advancing (and resisting) education privatization trends. An examination of the role of private corporations, policy entrepreneurs, philanthropic organizations, think-tanks, and teacher unions. “Rich in examples, careful in its analysis, important in its conclusions and recommendations for further work, this book is a vital, rigorous, up-to-date resource for education policy researchers.” —Stephen J. Ball, University College London “Few issues are as significant as is education privatization across the globe; few treatments of this issue offer both the breadth and nuanced understanding that this book does.” —Christopher Lubienski, Indiana University

Rich Democracies

Rich Democracies
Author: Harold L. Wilensky
Publisher: Univ of California Press
Total Pages: 932
Release: 2002-07-01
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 9780520928336

In this landmark work, the culmination of 30 years of systematic, comprehensive comparison of 19 rich democracies, Wilensky answers two basic questions: (1) What is distinctly modern about modern societies--in what ways are they becoming alike? (2) How do variations in types of political economy shape system performance? He specifies similarities and differences in the structure and interplay of government, political parties, the mass media, industry, labor, professions, agriculture, churches, and voluntary associations. He then demonstrates how differences in bargaining arrangements among these groups lead to contrasting policy profiles and patterns of taxing and spending, which in turn explain a large number of outcomes: economic performance, political legitimacy, equality, job security, safety and risk, real health, the reduction of poverty and environmental threats, and the effectiveness and fairness of regulatory regimes. Drawing on quantitative data and case studies covering the last 50 years and more than 400 interviews he conducted with top decision-makers and advisors, Wilensky provides a richly detailed account of the common social, economic, and labor problems modern governments confront and their contrasting styles of conflict resolution. The result is new light on the likely paths of development of rich democracies as they become richer. Assessing alternative theories, Wilensky offers a powerful critique of such images of modern society as "post-industrial" or "high-tech," "the information age" or the alleged dominance of "globalization." Because he systematically compares all of the rich democracies with at least three million population, Wilensky can specify what is truly exceptional about the United States, what it shares with Britain and Britain abroad (Canada, Australia, New Zealand) and what it shares with all or almost all of the West European democracies, Israel, and Japan. He gives careful attention to which successful social and labor policies are transferable across nations and which are not. Rich Democracies will interest both scholars and practitioners. It combines the perspectives of political economy (the interplay of markets and politics) and political sociology (the social bases of politics). It will be especially useful in courses on comparative political economy, comparative politics, European politics, public policy, political sociology, the welfare state, American government, advanced industrial societies, and industrial relations.

Public Things

Public Things
Author: Bonnie Honig
Publisher: Fordham Univ Press
Total Pages: 141
Release: 2017-03-01
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0823276422

In the contemporary world of neoliberalism, efficiency is treated as the vehicle of political and economic health. State bureaucracy, but not corporate bureaucracy, is seen as inefficient, and privatization is seen as a magic cure for social ills. In Public Things: Democracy in Disrepair, Bonnie Honig asks whether democracy is possible in the absence of public services, spaces, and utilities. In other words, if neoliberalism leaves to democracy merely electoral majoritarianism and procedures of deliberation while divesting democratic states of their ownership of public things, what will the impact be? Following Tocqueville, who extolled the virtues of “pursuing in common the objects of common desires,” Honig focuses not on the demos but on the objects of democratic life. Democracy, as she points out, postulates public things—infrastructure, monuments, libraries—that citizens use, care for, repair, and are gathered up by. To be “gathered up” refers to the work of D. W. Winnicott, the object relations psychoanalyst who popularized the idea of “transitional objects”—the toys, teddy bears, or favorite blankets by way of which infants come to understand themselves as unified selves with an inside and an outside in relation to others. The wager of Public Things is that the work transitional objects do for infants is analogously performed for democratic citizens by public things, which press us into object relations with others and with ourselves. Public Things attends also to the historically racial character of public things: public lands taken from indigenous peoples, access to public goods restricted to white majorities. Drawing on Hannah Arendt, who saw how things fabricated by humans lend stability to the human world, Honig shows how Arendt and Winnicott—both theorists of livenesss—underline the material and psychological conditions necessary for object permanence and the reparative work needed for a more egalitarian democracy.

Dancing with the Devil

Dancing with the Devil
Author: Yi-min Lin
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 289
Release: 2017-05-01
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0190682841

From 1978 through the turn of the century, China was transformed from a state-owned economy into a predominantly private economy. This fundamental change took place under the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), which has been ideologically and politically predisposed to suppress private ownership. In Dancing with the Devil, Yi-min Lin explains how and why such a paradoxical reality came about. He shows that private ownership became a necessary evil for the CCP because the public sector was increasingly unable to address two essential concerns for regime survival: employment and revenue. Focusing on political actors as major change agents, Lin examines how their self-interested behavior led to the decline of public ownership in the context of China's evolving demographics and fiscal system. The constraints and incentives associated with these factors help explain CCP leaders' initial decision to allow limited private economic activities at the outset of reform. They also shed light on the ballooning opportunism among lower officials, which undermined the vitality of public enterprises. Furthermore, they hold a key to understanding the timing of the massive privatization in the late 1990s, as well as its tempo and spread thereafter. Dancing with the Devil illustrates how the driving forces developed and played out in these intertwined episodes of the story. In so doing, it offers new insights into the mechanisms of China's economic transformation and enriches theories of institutional change.