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.

In The Political Economy of Privatization the authors assess the success of privatization. The work is an international study of the extensive privatization, and the pressure towards privatization, in different parts of the world. The book includes: * A study of the relationship between ownership and performance; * An assessment of the importance of market structure and regulation; * A discussion of privatization strategies within the public sector; * Individual country case-studies, looking at the experience of different countries engaged in the contrasting approaches to privatization. * A critical assessment of the much vaunted relationship between ownership and efficiency.

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

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 process of selling assests and enterprises to the private sector raises questions about natural monopolies, the efficiency and equity of state-owned versus privately owned enterprises, and industrial policy. This comprehensive analysis of the British privatization program explores these questions both theoretically and empirically.

This book suggests some of the ways in which levels of development shape public sector reform and privatization in developed and developing countries, showing that conservative as well as socialist governments were committed to increasing the state's guiding role in the political economy.

Dancing with the Devil explains why public ownership has declined in post-Mao China. Focusing on the behavior of political actors under changing incentives and constraints, the book illustrates how growing concerns about jobs and revenue have forced the country's communist rulers to change their policies toward private capital.

In the new global political economy, "privatization" names a transformation of the roles of public and private actors with the goal of reforming government policies and economic aid programs. It is an objective, a slogan, a fetish. But what does it signify? On the one hand, it refers to the process of changing industries, businesses, and services from governmental or public ownership to private agencies. But privatization now also extends to what are normally the prerogatives of national states: taxation, customs, internal security, national defense, and peace negotiations. In much of the literature, privatization is associated with the retreat, decline, or even demise of the state. Using Max Weber's concept of delegation, or "discharge," as a point of departure, Hibou and the contributors of this volume propose an alternative view, interpreting the contemporary restructuring of economic and political relations in much of the world as "the privatization of the state." This book challenges received ideas about the process of globalization and its presumed homogenization by suggesting that rather than weakening the powers of the state, privatization actually strengthens it. With examples from Russia, Poland, China, Taiwan, Indonesia, North Africa, and sub-Saharan Africa, the book questions the supposed inefficiency of states in regulating capitalism and the role economic and financial knowledge play as substitutes for political and social analysis.

The collection of articles in this volume reflect the vigorous implementation of privatization in Europe and deregulation in the United States over the last 25 years. The evolutions of the movements is discussed, both intellectually and politically.

Political incentives appear to affect the likelihood of privatization. Provinces in Argentina whose governors belonged to a fiscally conservative party were more likely to privatize, and fiscal and economic crises increased the likelihood of privatization. Clarke and Cull study the political economy of bank privatization in Argentina. The results of their study strongly support the hypothesis that political incentives affect the likelihood of privatization. They find that: * Provinces whose governors belonged to the fiscally conservative Partido Justicialista were more likely to privatize. * Fiscal and economic crises increased the likelihood of privatization. * Poorly performing banks were more likely to be privatized. They tested the hypotheses for a specific industry in a specific country, making it possible to control for enterprise performance and institutional characteristics. It seems reasonable to expect that similar results might hold in other industries and countries. This paper-a product of the Development Research Group-is part of a larger effort in the group to investigate the determinants of structural change in development countries' banking sectors. The authors may be contacted at [email protected] or [email protected].