The politics of privatisation: The case of the coffee industry corporation in Papua New Guinea

Since the 1970s there has been a continuing international drive to transform state institutions in a wide range of countries. The reforming drive continues to be associated with the idea of privatisation. The privatisation of the long‐established statutory corporation, the Coffee Industry Board (CIB), in Papua New Guinea (PNG), provides an opportunity to examine forces behind one expression of the demands for reform. The examination shows that while the demands were expressed as embodying a general interest, in this case that of ‘the coffee industry’, the campaign for privatisation was driven by the concerns of the largest exporting firms. While the effectiveness of the campaign depended upon capturing an international and domestic mood for reform, the specific target of the drive was the post‐independence changes in the practices of the Coffee Industry Board. In particular, the allocation of an increasing number of licences and export quota to new firms at the expense of long‐established trading firms threatened these enterprises’ revenues and profitability.