Limits to Privatization: How to Avoid Too Much of a Good Thing - A Report to the Club of Rome

ISBN-13: 9781844071777 / Angielski / Twarda / 2005 / 432 str.

Ernst U. Von Weizsacker; Oran R. Young; Matthias Finger

Opis

Driven by ideology, the IMF, the World Bank and powerful business interests, governments all over the world have been privatizing services in a growing number of sectors. Not just industrial utilities like energy, water and transport, but health, education, media, communications, pensions, even prisons and defence. But what have been the results? Have private funds and management produced greater efficiency, better economic performance and higher levels of service everywhere? This book is the first thorough audit of privatizations around the world. It shows how and where they have worked well, and where they have defeated their own aims - with serious impacts on public health, environmental sustainability, democratic accountability and the level of public service. It analyses the factors behind success or failure to establish criteria for future sell-offs, and argues for the fundamental importance of democratic governance of the privatization of publicly owned goods. The result is a book of major importance, challenging one of the orthodoxies of our day - a benchmark for future debate.

Spis treści

PART I INTRODUCTION * Limits to Privatization * PART II PRIVATIZATION IN MANY SECTORS: CASE STUDIES AND SNAPSHOTS * Initial remarks * NATURAL RESOURCES AND RELATED INDUSTRIES * Water * Metals and Cement * Other Resources * NETWORK INDUSTRIES * Energy * Telecommunication and Postal Services * Transportation * OTHER SERVICES * Waste Disposal * Insurance * Culture and Media * Health * Education * Pensions * Police and Security * PART III PRIVATIZATION IN CONTEXT * Initial remarks * The General Context * The Regional Context * Special Issues * PART IV GOVERNANCE OF PRIVATIZATION * Initial remarks * Regulation * Privatization and Municipal Democracy * Financing Global Public Goods: Challenges * Escaping Pernicious Dualism: Civil Society between the State and the Firm * Private Governance: Private Rules for Privatization? * 'Co-evolution' between State Regulation and the Private Sector * PART V CONCLUSION * Lessons Learned from Privatization *

O autorze

Ernst Ulrich von Weizsäcker is dean of the Donald Bren School of Environmental Science and Management, UC Santa Barbara and a former member of the German Bundestag. Oran R. Young is a professor in the Donald Bren School of Environmental Science and Management. Matthias Finger is chair and professor of Management of Network Industries at the College of Management, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, as well as dean of the School of Continuing Education, EPFL, Lausanne, Switzerland. Marianne Barheim is assistant professor at the Free University Berlin, Institute for Political Science.