Does Privatization Work

Privatization has been one of the most important elements of public policy in the last decade and there have been massive transfers of ownership from the public to the private sector on a national and international level. This book combines thematic papers with country case studies to discuss the mechanisms which have enabled this to occur, and to assess privatization's mixed achievements. The authors, international academics, practitioners and consultants and the process of privatization is discussed in East Germany, Nigeria, Pakistan, Guyana, Sri Lanka, Trinidad and Tobago, and Great Britain.

Privatization has been one of the most important elements of public policy in the last decade and there have been massive transfers of ownership from the public to the private sector on a national and international level. This book combines thematic papers with country case studies to discuss the mechanisms which have enabled this to occur, and to assess privatization's mixed achievements. The authors, international academics, practitioners and consultants and the process of privatization is discussed in East Germany, Nigeria, Pakistan, Guyana, Sri Lanka, Trinidad and Tobago, and Great Britain.

Why government outsourcing of public powers is making us less free Many governmental functions today—from the management of prisons and welfare offices to warfare and financial regulation—are outsourced to private entities. Education and health care are funded in part through private philanthropy rather than taxation. Can a privatized government rule legitimately? The Privatized State argues that it cannot. In this boldly provocative book, Chiara Cordelli argues that privatization constitutes a regression to a precivil condition—what philosophers centuries ago called "a state of nature." Developing a compelling case for the democratic state and its administrative apparatus, she shows how privatization reproduces the very same defects that Enlightenment thinkers attributed to the precivil condition, and which only properly constituted political institutions can overcome—defects such as provisional justice, undue dependence, and unfreedom. Cordelli advocates for constitutional limits on privatization and a more democratic system of public administration, and lays out the central responsibilities of private actors in contexts where governance is already extensively privatized. Charting a way forward, she presents a new conceptual account of political representation and novel philosophical theories of democratic authority and legitimate lawmaking. The Privatized State shows how privatization undermines the very reason political institutions exist in the first place, and advocates for a new way of administering public affairs that is more democratic and just.

From 1997 to 2001, more than 4,000 privatization operations have been carried out in more than 100 countries, bringing in government revenues of over 1,362 billion dollars. The phenomenon, which grew exponentially at the end of the 1990s and then abruptly slowed down, had dramatic consequences on the performance of state-owned enterprises and a significant impact on industrialized countries, as well as emerging and less developed economies. Yet there have been surprisingly fewattempts to provide a systematic empirical account of the privatization process at the worldwide level.Why do governments privatize? Why do some countries accomplish large-scale privatization programmes, and others never privatize at all? Is privatization a trend or a cycle? Furthermore, how do governments privatize? Do governments really transfer ownership and control of state-owned enterprises or does private ownership tend to coexist with public control?This book provides some answers to these important questions trying to test research hypotheses set forth by the recent economic theory of privatization.Comprehensive cross-country empirical analyses carried out over a period of more than twenty years are used in the book to show that privatization has taken place all over the world, sometimes spontaneously, more often under the pressure of economic and budgetary constraints. Several of the goals of the privatization have been met, but despite proclamations and programmes, only a small minority of countries has carried out a genuine privatization process, completely transferring ownership ofstate-owned enterprises to the private sector. A lack of political will is to some extent at the root of this reluctance. However this reluctance can be traced back partly to structural factors that would make an orderly privatization difficult, such as the absence of developed capital markets,appropriate regulation, and suitable institutions.

Despite its importance, labor is one of the least addressed issues in privatization. The lack of information on the employment impact of privatization has exacerbated the fears and concerns of governments and workers alike. This paper examines the effects of privatization on labor and analyzes the mechanisms that governments can use to minimize the political and social costs of labor restructuring in privatization, by drawing on the experience of mixed economies.

Chiefly papers originally presented at a conference held in Washington, D.C., February 1986, sponsored by the U.S. Agency for International Development and the Sequoia Institute.