Privatization (original) (raw)
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Is Nothing Sacred? Privatization and the Person.
Nebula
This essay develops a hypothesis concerning both privatization itself and its relation to modernity. Privatization-in-general (as opposed to the 1980s manifestations we still call privatization) had its genesis in the sixteenth century Reformation and counter-Reformation. From this theological space, it unfolded in a distinctively moral way through a variety of theatres, and as it did so, it found in each of these a new articulation. Arising in what was then becoming "the West," it had a determined character, in that in an anthropological sense it was closely linked to the Judaeo-Christian notion of the sacredness of the person. As a result, as privatization carved -and carves -its ongoing paths through these theatres -philosophical, economic, legal, educational, aesthetic, political -it threatens existing orders, even as it holds out the promise of ever-new versions of the private (and its opposites, the public, the social, and so on). The authors contend that this view of privatization proffers a new way of grasping and defining modernity itself (although it is beyond the purview of the essay to do more than indicate the shape of such definition). The account offered limits itself to showing the moral nature and genesis of privatization, and explores examples of its emergence in selected fields. It does so in a spirit of hypothesis and illustration, rather than of demonstration or exhaustiveness.
Privatization is a fuzzy concept that evokes sharp political reactions. It covers a great range of ideas and policies, varying from the eminently reasonable to the wildly impractical. Yet however varied and at times unclear in its meaning, privatization has unambiguous political origins and objectives. It emerges from the countermovement against the growth of government in the West and represents the most serious conservative effort of our time to formulate a positive alternative. Privatization proposals do not aim merely to return services to their original location in the private sphere. Some proposals seek to create new kinds of market relations and promise results comparable or superior to conventional public programs. Hence it is a mistake to define and dismiss the movement as simply a replay of traditional opposition to state intervention and expenditure. The current wave of privatization initiatives opens a new chapter in the conflict over the public-private balance.
Historicizing postsocialist privatization at the juncture of the cultural and the economic
Journal of Contemporary Central and Eastern Europe, 2022
Privatization was one of the key mechanisms in the transformation from planned to market economies in the former Eastern Bloc following the collapse of communist regimes. Although this radical change in ownership structures is most often understood as belonging to the sphere of the economy, it also profoundly affected society and shared values. As historians are increasingly turning to the post-1989 period in Central and Eastern Europe, this introduction and special issue argue that economic and political history alone are not sufficient to investigate the process of privatization; approaches from social and cultural history are also necessary. Transformation, and privatization in particular, was the result of complex interactions between the economic policies of nationstates, the actions of transnational organizations and private corporations, the development of global capitalism, but also of local traditions, cultural stereotypes and representations, and the transformation of institutions other than political and economic ones. By taking into account this complex nexus of factors, we argue, historical research can bring a new quality to the existing social science work on postsocialist privatization and economic transformation more generally.
Ways of owning: towards an economic sociology of privatisation
Economic sociology has been preoccupied with the institution of markets, to the relative neglect of ownership. It has inherited certain technical and governmental problematics regarding that which can or cannot be internalised within the market price system, leading to the assumption that the ‘social’ or the ‘public’ is a type of empirical externality. But by shifting attention towards institutions of ownership, the public and the private come to appear as primarily normative appeals, used to challenge and justify the drawing of boundaries in economic life. Boundaries are judged for their justice, as well as for their empirical efficacy. Adopting a pragmatist approach, this paper outlines three possible ‘orders of appropriation’ which can be appealed to when justifying and criticising privatisation in economic situations: the socialist, the neoliberal and the liberal. Beyond any scientific or technical account of property, each of these offers an ‘ultimate’ basis on which to view ownership, according to different and incompatible philosophical anthropologies.
What is privatization? A political economy framework
This paper presents a political economic framework for understanding privatization. Its claims are illustrated empirically through examples from contemporary Europe. Theoretically, it starts with the concept of accumulation by dispossession, which refers to the conversion of non-capitalist spaces and practices into the capitalist sphere. This conversion occurs through privatization, liberalization, and marketization. The paper focuses on privatization and presents a schematic that outlines four forms it can take: corporatization, outsourcing, public–private partnerships, and divestiture/asset transfer. These are located on a continuum denoting the extent of private sector involvement. The schematic is an important methodological contribution that enables comparative research on privatization across economic sectors and geographical settings. It thus improves on the accumulation by dispossession literature, which has focused largely on case studies but neglected generic frameworks.
Privatization and Economic and Social Rights
Human Rights Quarterly, 2018
Privatization is an ever more dominant model of economic and social rights (ESR) realization. Contracting out, public-private partnerships, and other approaches by which the private sector takes responsibility for, or supports the state in, delivering ESR-related goods and services are being advanced aggressively at both the national and supranational levels, with international financial institutions playing an especially influential role. Thus far, however, there has been relatively little attention paid to privatization in ESR scholarship and practice, resulting in a significant lacuna from both a normative and an empirical perspective. This gap is perhaps most striking-and worrying-in relation to the work of those international bodies mandated with interpreting and applying the ESR standards under international law. Taking as its starting point the delineation of ESR obligations in terms of the tripartite typology of respect, protect, and fulfill outlined by the United Nations Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, this article considers how that framework (and the human rights treaty-monitoring bodies which employ it in their work) addresses privatization from an ESR perspective. Highlighting an excessive emphasis on the obligation to protect to the exclusion of other relevant levels of obligation, the author asserts that such an approach is reflective of a failure to conceptualize privatization and the state's role with regard to such properly-a failure that has very serious implications for the ability of the ESR framework as it stands to capture rights-harming actions in the context of privatization effectively. Arguing for a shift to the obligation to fulfill, the author contends this alternative approach would contribute significantly to the ability of ESR law as it stands to capture-and address-the full scope of state decision-making and (in)action at issue in situations of privatization. The article concludes with observations on recent moves by the Committee which though in the right direction leave much work to be done.
Privatization has occupied the attention of theorists of different disciplines. Yet, despite the multiplicity of perspectives, the typical arguments concerning privatization are instrumental, relying heavily on comparing the performance of a public functionary with that of its private counterpart. This paper challenges this approach for leaving unaddressed other important consequences of shifting responsibilities to private entities. More specifically, privatization cuts off the link between processes of decision-making and the citizens and, therefore, erodes political engagement and its underlying notion of shared responsibility.