Stabilizing neoliberalism in Bolivia: popular participation and privatization

Neoliberal theorists and development practitioners contend that economic liberalization and privatization lead to increased private sector productivity and decentralization accompanied by administrative reforms lead to greater democracy, more efficient public sector investment, and faster local development. Examination of the Bolivian case, which has been promoted as a global model for neoliberal restructuring, presents a different picture. There, economic restructuring and privatization have led to a decline in government revenues and a continuing economic crisis. Privatization of public services has led to rate hikes, which, in turn, have generated massive social protests. Political restructuring through decentralization has as often resulted in the entrenchment of local elites as in increases in truly democratic control of resources and social investments. This economic and political restructuring has also served to territorialize opposition to privatization and neoliberal economic policies and, in some areas, reinforce regional social movements. When examined together, it becomes clear how economic and administrative restructuring has sought to provide transnational firms both access to Bolivian natural resources as well as the social stability necessary in which to operate. As privatization through the Law of Capitalization further opened the country’s borders to global capital, the decentralization program through the Law of Popular Participation served to focus the attention of popular movements from national to local arenas. While foreign investment has increased, the lack of benefits for the majority of the country has led to mounting regional social protests in the face of reduced government spending on social programs and increased prices for basic services.     

Privatization in Bangladesh: The Emergence of ‘Family Capitalism’

The programme of state enterprise privatization pursued by the government of Bangladesh since 1975, largely under the influence and financial conditions of the aid agencies, has been subject to widespread debate. In 1991, at the suggestion of the World Bank, the government of Bangladesh formed the Privatization Board to ensure better outcomes of privatization. This article investigates whether firms privatized under the auspices of the Privatization Board up to 1996 were adding to the nation's economic growth or — as critics claimed — to individual families’ pockets. More specifically, it examines whether enterprises privatized in 1991–6 reversed previous losses and introduced better management controls, leading to increased investment, productivity, and overall organizational effectiveness and efficiency. The major findings are not supportive of privatization policy, indicating that the performance of privatized enterprises has not improved significantly. Without denying the economic problems of Bangladesh's public enterprises, past and present, this article questions the performance of privatized companies in terms of their declining profitability and productivity; employment conditions and trade union and individual rights; altered distributions of value added in absolute and relative terms; and serious lack of financial transparency and accountability.     

The Privatization of Health Care Cleaning Services in Southwestern British Columbia,Canada: Union Responses to Unprecedented Government Actions

This paper analyzes the political dynamics between a newly elected, right‐leaning provincial government and a left‐leaning public sector union that resulted in the privatization of 4000 health support housekeeping jobs in southwestern British Columbia in less than a year. The article documents how government set the stage for privatization, the struggle that ensued when the union resisted concessionary bargaining, and the new challenges that emerged for both union and management once housekeeping and other support services were taken over by multi‐national service corporations. This case is significant because the size and scope of this privatization and the legislation that facilitated it are unprecedented in Canadian history.     

Lessons From Privatization Task Forces

This study provides evidence on an aspect of privatization that is increasing in popularity yet rarely considered in the literature: the effect that private-sector task forces have on privatization efforts. It uses case studies from Charlotte and Raleigh, North Carolina, to provide evidence on the role of task forces in reengineering government and suggests how future privatization efforts can benefit from this knowledge. Specifically, it suggests that task forces need to establish realistic timetables, understand that there are fundamental differences between the public and private sectors, and work without predetermined biases to achieve desired ends. In addition, they need to identify services that are appropriate for privatization, understand the nature of privatization, and accept both the strengths and weaknesses of it. While the results of privatization endeavors may vary, they may be enhanced by adopting a new awareness of how private-sector task forces influence privatization efforts.     

PUBLIC OWNERSHIP OF LAND AND THE "SAGEBRUSH REBELLION"

Advocates of “privatization” argue that the sale of public lands to private owners would significantly improve the management of natural resources. Experience from the first round of land sales suggests that the government, responding to the politics of the Sagebrush Rebellion, will continue to subsidize preferred uses of “privatized” lands through give–aways, below–par purchases, preference sales, and imperfect sales. Even though the federal government may go ahead with the land sales program, political compromises will not allow the free market goals of privatization to be realized.     

Local Control Wasting Away

Municipal solid waste management and planning traditionally have been regarded as the responsibility of local government. However, the legal climate surrounding solid waste management has become more constrained, placing local government at the mercy of the private waste management industry, and eroding the effectiveness of local waste planning efforts. This article provides an overview of recent court decisions impacting local government solid waste management. It also discusses current congressional activity relating to interstate waste transport and flow control, and assesses the potential effects of such legislation on public solid waste management and on privatization issues raised by critics of local control.     

Privatization

The privatization of government services, especially by utilizing the contracting-out mode, has accelerated in recent years in the United States, particularly at the state and local level. Shifts in the relative strength of forces in a political coalition model underlay the trend. There have been several benefits of privatization, especially cost containment and quality enhancement. The recent history of privatization provides a number of lessons to guide future privatization policy.     

系统动力学视角下我国自然旅游资源私有化影响机制研究

定义了"自然旅游资源私有化"现象,分析了NBTRP的积极影响和消极影响。在此基础上,采用了系统动力学方法抽象了4个模型解释NBTRP积极影响和消极影响的作用机制。这4个模型分别为"NBTRP之前"、"成功的NBTRP"和"失败的NBTRP"三种情况下的利益相关者作用模型和以自然旅游资源量为核心的"NBTRP的整体系统动力学存流量模型"。     

Private Profits – Public Drought: The Creation of a Crisis in Water Management for West Yorkshire

This paper examines the political and corporate constructions of the 1995–96 drought crisis in West Yorkshire, when an unprecedented public furore was provoked by the threat of water-supply cut-offs. A key outcome of this process was a profound crisis of confidence over the governance of water resources, which can be linked to the privatization of the industry and, more broadly, to the processes of redrawing the boundaries of the state. The water industry illustrates the contestability of neoliberal reforms seeking to inspire market-led growth with minimal government intervention. In particular, political dogma about the anticipated benefits of market competitiveness failed adequately to take into account public concern for the 'common good'.     

Longing for the New Jerusalem

Abstract

The following article is concerned with the changing nature of religion in Northern Europe. It considers first the concepts of "believing without belonging" and "vicarious religion," pointing out the limitations of each and drawing extensively on previously published work. The following section discusses in more detail a shift that is currently taking place—that is from forms of religion that are imposed or inherited to forms of religion that are primarily chosen. Particular attention is paid to the implications of these changes for the rites of passage. The final section reflects on the theological consequences of these changes, first with a more detailed discussion of notion of vicariousness and second by examining the complex relationship between the public and the private in religious life. It argues that forms of religion that are chosen rather than inherited have implications for the public as well as the private sphere. They are ill-served by an over-rigorous application of the concept of privatization.     

International Transformations of the Capitalist State1

Abstract: There has not been a retreat but a transformation of the state, involving significant changes in both the public sphere of politics and the so‐called private sphere of economic activity, and in their modes of interaction, especially law. The privatization of state‐owned assets and the reduction of direct state economic intervention have not led to a reduced role of the state but to changes in its form, involving new types of formalized regulation, the fragmentation of the public sphere, the decentering of the state and the emergence of multi‐level governance. This has been complemented by the increased salience of “private” regulation, so that in many ways the apparently private sphere of economic activity has become more public. In fact, there has been a complex process of interaction with a blurring of the divisions between apparently private and public regulation. Despite talk of deregulation there has been extensive reregulation, or formalization of regulation, and the emergence of global regulatory networks, intermingling the public and the private. The transition from government to governance means a lack of a clear hierarchy of norms, a blurring of distinctions between hard and soft law, and a fragmentation of public functions entailing a resurgence of technocracy.     

Airport Privatization

In today's economic and political climate, there is a growing trend toward less governmental intervention in the economy and more reliance on the private sector for the delivery of a variety of services. Deficit politics, airline deregulation, and the prospect of a windfall of cash has prompted many local units of government that own and operate airports to consider selling or leasing these facilities to private investors. Airport privatization has emerged as a contentious issue, with weighty arguments on both sides of the debate. This article examines these arguments and presents several models of airport privatization. The authors suggest that the most aggressive form of privatization–full divestiture–is unlikely to produce the benefits advertised by its proponents. However, less radical forms of privatization serve as useful models for future airport ownership and operation. The authors conclude that, given the great variation in the types of airports in the United States system, no single model is sufficient.     

In the Public Interest

In today's economic and political climate, there is a growing trend toward less governmental intervention in the economy and more reliance on the private sector for the delivery of a variety of services. Deficit politics, airline deregulation, and the prospect of a windfall of cash has prompted many local units of government that own and operate airports to consider selling or leasing these facilities to private investors. Airport privatization has emerged as a contentious issue, with weighty arguments on both sides of the debate. This article examines these arguments and presents several models of airport privatization. The authors suggest that the most aggressive form of privatization–full divestiture–is unlikely to produce the benefits advertised by its proponents. However, less radical forms of privatization serve as useful models for future airport ownership and operation. The authors conclude that, given the great variation in the types of airports in the United States system, no single model is sufficient.     

The fantasy of access: Neoliberal ordering of a public beach

Neoliberal governance has led to the progressive privatization and ordering of urban public spaces, restricting their use as domains of political expression and visible identity formation. While the processes of privatization have taken a variety of forms, the end result either produces new privately-owned spaces or restricts access and behavior in extant public space. A programmatic, bourgeois-public space emerges where a fantasy of open-access occludes the experience of exclusion. This fantasy of inclusive public space is upheld by dualistically countering its faux-democratic state management against private ownership. Though scholars have theorized the neoliberal production of public spaces elsewhere, this paradigm has rarely been applied to the large and proximate public beaches and coastlines that bound US lands. This paper seeks to complicate our understanding of the process of privatization by countering legal and experiential exclusions that govern access to beaches in Connecticut. A study of the Eastern Point beaches in Groton, Connecticut is used to analyze the impacts of a Connecticut Supreme Court case that struck down residents-only restricted beaches. Supported by empirical data from beachgoers at the small public and private beaches, the mechanics of exclusion are shown to hinge upon race class and locality. Though Connecticut beaches are now more legally inclusive, results from this research indicate that the ruling has had negligible effects upon the practice of social exclusion from the beach. Using anarchist theories of spatial practice, I suggest that a democratic public space can only be achieved through occupation and embodied resistance to neoliberal ordering.     

Mexican Public Sector Food Policy Under Agricultural Trade Liberalization

Mexico has enjoyed one of the Third World's most successful food production systems, based on a complex pattern of public sector intervention. Since 1982, the public sector has withdrawn, in a remarkably Steadfast commitment to privatization, external stabilization, and trade liberalization. This article traces the key elements of that process, and their likely impacts on traditional political goals of food security progressive social policy in the countryside, and external sector dependence. The principal argument is that privatization and trade liberalization leave poor agriculturalists vulnerable, but undoubtebly offer fiscal gains to the state and benefits to urban consumers, especially in light of reduced subsidies.     

Private School Enrollment and Public School Performance

Advocates of education privatization often take two general approaches to denigrating commonplace public school monopoly service provision assignments. One general argument is that public school administrators are self-interested rent-seekers, which is evidenced by the ever-enlarging bureaucracies they operate. This argument has been roundly criticized by Kevin Smith and Kenneth Meier (1994, 1995) in two methodologically rigorous analyses. The second general argument is grounded in the assumption that public school student performance will improve if public schools are forced to compete for enrollment with private school alternatives. The evidence regarding this claim of privatization advocates has been contested in a systematic study of North Carolina school districts, but requires further analysis to determine if these findings can be generalized to school districts writ large. Such a replication study is presented here, with findings reported that are in agreement with those of Newmark (1995).     

‘The women's lobby’: Networks,coalition building and the women of middle Australia

The ‘women's lobby’ or the ‘powerful feminist lobby’ has been held responsible for a range of evils including the undermining of the traditional family, public expenditure on community services, social engineering and the imposition of ‘political correctness’. To what extent is there a ‘women's lobby’ working from inside or outside government to influence public decision‐mating? In this paper we explore this question, using data from a social network analysis of the Australian women's movement conducted in 1992–3.

Our findings are that there is a large, very loosely connected network of organisations engaging in advocacy on behalf of women. Density of ties is less than is found in a comparable study of the Canadian women's movement but there are more ties between non‐government groups and government agencies. Issues of organisational philosophy have inhibited the development of a ‘peak body’ for the non‐government women's movement and led to reliance on issue‐specific coalitions. Latterly, awareness of increasing fragmentation has led to a series of attempts to create more effective national networking.     

School Choice in Milwaukee

For decades educational reformers have identified school choice programs as a strategy for restructuring public school systems. Practically every state has considered or adopted a school assignment program that qualifies as a "choice" initiative, one in which students and parents have some choice in school selection. Increasingly, school districts are contemplating plans that include a choice of private, as well as public, schools. One of the most far-reaching of these school choice plans is the Milwaukee (Wisconsin) Parental Choice Program, which, as legislated, allows parents to use vouchers to enroll their children in both sectarian and nonsectarian schools in the community. This paper explores the evolution of school choice in Milwaukee and examines the extent to which school choice is representative of other privatization efforts currently under way in the United States.     

Real‐estate in Russia from socialism to the market economy: The case of St Petersburg

In Russia, the real‐estate question is one of the key points in the transition from the Soviet system towards the market economy. Whereas the privatization of businesses and accommodation has been widely undertaken since 1990, the privatization of buildings and especially of land is still limited, the State and town councils remaining the principal land and property owners. This situation, which leads to very distinctive relations between public and private agents, is slowing the expansion of private property investment considerably and inhibiting the setting up of a genuine real estate market.     

Privatizing the Crown: The Exceptional Fate of Alberta's Liquor Control Board

A dramatic policy shift provides a means for understanding decision-making in governments. The privatization of the Alberta Liquor Control Board (ALCB) in 1993 is an example of a radical governance reform whereby most of a policy sector was turned from a state bureaucracy to a marketplace of private firms. This article examines the decision of Ralph Klein's government to privatize the ALCB and the central roles that history, institutional configurations, and path dependencies, among other factors, played in shaping its policy decisions. Of all the provinces, only Alberta has fully privatized its liquor board. The rest of the provinces, to varying degrees, have both retained and reformed their publicly owned and operated liquor boards, the largest of which is the Liquor Control Board of Ontario (LCBO). The unique policy outcome in Alberta was primarily a result of province-specific, temporally significant institutional and political factors. Liquidating the ALCB and establishing a private market to sell alcohol were relatively easy policies for the Klein Tories to implement given the weakness of the affected stakeholders in the liquor distribution industry. The liquidation of the ALCB was intended to demonstrate to the public that the new Klein government was dedicated to reducing the size and scope of Alberta's provincial state.