Explaining individual-level support for privatization in European post-Soviet economies

Abstract. This article explores the sources of individual-level variation in support economic privatization in seven European post-Soviet countries. It tests economic utilitarian and psychological explanations of variations in support for economic privatization. The economic utilitarian explanation posits that individuals seek to maximize their potential material gains from economic liberalization. The psychological explanation posits that if individuals are generally risk averse, they are not likely to support economic privatization. These hypotheses are then tested using two separate regression models. The first model estimates pooled data from across all seven European post-Soviet economies. The second model is a pooled analysis that interacts country-specific dummy variables with each of the independent variables in order to examine the country-specific effects of the responses. The results show that the economic utilitarian and psychological explanations are both strong predictors of why some support and others oppose privatization in the seven European post-Soviet countries.     

On the political and democratic preconditions of equal recognition

Alan Patten’s Equal Recognition is a compelling justification of a liberal, procedural conception of recognition. This conception is built upon a convincing conception of moral equality, but it does not offer a full theoretical discussion of recognition. I argue that the liberal recognition provided by Patten is too formal and narrow to address all relevant issues regarding conflicts of recognition in democratic societies. In particular, it does not consider the political and democratic preconditions that should be granted to minority groups or immigrants in order to provide them fair opportunities to effectively (and not only formally) reach equal recognition.     

`Civil society' in Japanese politics: Implications for contemporary political research

Abstract. This article presents a definitional and historical summary of 'civil society' as a western concept, and then traces how it was used in Japanese political theory and practice. 'Civil society' discourse became a familiar term amongst post–war Japanese historians and social scientists in the period 1945–1970, and thus preceded the recent international proliferation of 'civil society' literature in the 'west' from the 1970s onwards. 'Civil society' discourse was politicised in practice in Japan in the 1950s and 1960s, principally in opposition movements wanting to encourage political participation by ordinary citizens. While some 'civil society' discourse in Japan was based on an idealisation of 'western' ideas and practice, it is also the case that the individualism and democratisation implied in 'civil society' discourse has been very differently understood in 'western' countries and very unevenly instituted in their political practice. A simple East–West frame makes significant similarities between Japanese ideas and practice and 'western' concepts and politics disappear, and additionally causes significant differences within the 'west' regarding individualism and democratisation to become invisible.     

Institutional Implications of Interactive Governance: Insights from Dutch Practice

Nowadays all kinds of processes of citizen involvement can be observed in practice. We label them as interactive governance in this article. Interactive governance brings with it new proto-institutions that can conflict with existing institutions of decision making. We analyze these institutional tensions in several Dutch local governments through comparative research. Our main conclusion is that there is a "missing institutional link" between the interactive process and the formal municipal decision-making process. Interactive governance needs better institutional embeddedness in order to prevent the interactive process from becoming meaningless and useless in formal decision making.     

The political economy of accountability in Timor‐Leste: Implications for public policy

With a view to establishing the likelihood of the occurrence of state capture and different forms of corruption and the feasibility of their management and prevention, important aspects of the historical, social, economic, political and governance context of Timor‐Leste are examined. This context is found to be conducive to various forms of state capture and systemic grand and petty corruption, and to be resistant to conventional short‐term technocratic anticorruption remedies. While the latter are likely to have public relations benefits that may be helpful to the maintenance of political stability in the short run, it is argued that significant anticorruption progress is a long‐term endeavour, achievable principally through: sustained impartial service delivery that undermines beliefs in patronage; hastening—through general education and the creation of a conducive legal environment for business—the emergence of leaders of integrity and the growth of a middle class; and the establishment of the rule of law. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Of cattle,farmers, veterinarians and the World Bank: The political economy of veterinary services privatization in Cameroun

This article relates how the World Bank makes reform decisions in a particular economic sector and country. It highlights some of the key issues pertaining to the privatization of livestock veterinary services in sub-Saharan Africa, with a particular focus on Cameroun. Relating to the economics literature, it argues that veterinary services have both public and private good attributes. Therefore, any policy aimed at privatizing the entire spectrum of services without regard to their public good character is likely to result in significant market failures. With empirical evidence provided by Cameroun, the article also demonstrates that the ‘privatization project’ advocated most strongly by key international lending institutions does not enjoy much support among African policy makers. It also raises issues of implementation in policy environments fraught with bureaucratic indifference and resistance, as well as divisions within the lending community over policy directions.     

The preconditions for successful evaluation: Is there an ideal paradigm?

The dominant paradigm in evaluation research is undergoing serious challenge. This article explores the ideal role of evaluation in decisionmaking, the methodologies for conducting evaluations, the congruence between evaluation methodology and actual organizational behavior, and the relationship between evaluators and program managers. We conclude that although there are serious disparities between the ideal and the actual in each of these four areas, and especially in the congruence between evaluation methodology and organizational behavior, there is not likely to be a change in the dominant paradigm because it is difficult for practitioners to use the language and values of new organizational perspectives.     

Understanding Economic Development and Institutional Change: East Asian Development Model Reconsidered with Implications for China

This paper presents a coherent framework to characterize the dynamics of economic development and institutional change in the East Asian Development Model. In the early stage of development, due to market incompleteness, a government with high autonomy and capacity can promote economic development through interlinked and relational arrangements (e.g., industrial policy). In later stages, market completion will usually unravel interlinked and relational contracts, and lead to a rule-based society. The paper shows that the appropriate role of government and institutions are functions of the stage of development. In particular, relation-based governance is suited to investment-led development, while rule-based governance is suited to innovation-led development. The paper ends up with some implications for China’s development and institutional change.     

Privata: A model for privatization with multiple non-transitive objectives

Deregulation of public enterprises and services by privatization is very fashionable nowadays. The aim of privatization is mainly to increase effectiveness, while the government itself likes to maximize its revenue at the occasion of the takeover. Most of these public enterprises show a shortage in investment while maintenance of a reasonable employment level in the new private firm is also strongly desirable, not to mention the ecological obligations imposed on the new private firm. It means that takeover bids have to face multiple non-transitive objectives and several parties interested in the issue even several decision makers. Traditionally the optimization of all these objectives are then judged upon case by case in a rather subjective way. Consequently there is a need for a more general and objective, not to say scientific, method which can compare several takeover bids for privatization optimizing multiple objectives sometimes with different units of measurement. With that purpose, the Privata model was developed. Privata takes into consideration upper limits, lower bounds, dominating and nondominating effects, ending up with a set of nondominated takeover bids, which are ranked by using the reference point theory based on the maximal criterion values. In this way objectivity and decreasing marginal utility are fully respected. A theoretical explanation is followed by a simulation on several takeover bids for a public enterprise given multiple objectives.     

Strategic management of privatization: a framework for planning and implementation

The continuing interest of governments around the world in privatizing state-owned enterprises (SOEs) is making privatization policy an important instrument for promoting market-oriented approaches to economic development. Privatization has become an integral part of administrative reform in former centrally planned socialist economies, developing countries, and post-industrial societies. More than a decade of experience with privatization provides lessons that can help governments to plan, implement and manage the process more efficiently, effectively, and responsively. The framework for managing privatization described here draws from lessons of that experience to define the forms, scope and pace of privatization, choose organizational structures for management, identify macropolicy and institutional reforms necessary to facilitate privatization, and develop management procedures for implementing privatization programmes successfully.     

Limits of market-based strategies for slowing global warming: The case of tradeable permits

Concern over an enhanced greenhouse effect has yielded interest in an international effort to control rising concentrations of greenhouse gases. Among the possible mechanisms for doing this is a comprehensive marked-based approach. This approach would establish a global system of tradeable permits for the sources and sinks of the major greenhouse gases: carbon dioxide (CO₂), nitrous oxide (N₂O), methane (CH₄), and tropospheric ozone (O₃). (Chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) are not closely considered here because they are already controlled under the Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer.)The main finding is that - with the possible exception of CO₂ - not enough is currently known about these gases to accurately monitor such a system of tradeable permits. The main argument is made on the basis that the anthropogenic sources and sinks of non-CO₂ gases are quite uncertain, making nation-by-nation monitoring very difficult. Also, monitoring many of the sources and sinks for these non-CO₂ gases will be very complicated - the administrative costs of the endeavor may be much larger than benefits of including these gases in a global system of tradeable permits. One alternative to the proposed comprehensive marked-based approach is a more limited system that includes only CO₂. This finding has broader application to all greenhouse control mechanisms, not just tradeable permits.In addition to these natural science-related issues, the paper also briefly raises several other issues such as fear that markets will allow firms to buy up the environment.     

When new public management fails: Infrastructure public–private partnerships and political constraints in developing and transitional economies

Amidst calls for more scrutiny of the failure of infrastructure public–private partnerships (PPPs), uncertainty about how we can measure failure remains, and little systematic evidence illuminates its likelihood. Our mixed‐methods design explores the notion of failure and identifies the conditions under which it happens. The first phase of our research employs documentary analysis and semistructured expert interviews, and identifies project cancellation as capturing the most severe occurrences of failure. A second phase statistically analyzes a unique World Bank data set capturing the provisions of over 4,000 infrastructure PPPs launched between 1990 and 2015 in 89 countries. We find robust evidence supporting the theoretical claim that PPPs are less likely to be canceled in countries with more veto points among their political institutions to restrain politicians from intervening in policy implementation. Cancellation is a rare, but valid indicator of failure, and the importance of veto players clarifies how political risk operates in this context.     

Age difference in political decision making: Strategies for evaluating political candidates

To investigate age-related differences in strategies used to evaluate political candidates, an experimental study employed protocol tracing techniques with a computerized information matrix. Forty younger and forty older adults gathered information about and evaluated candidates in national and local elections. Older adults accessed less information but took longer to examine information and make choices. Differences in strategic processing suggest that young adults were more likely to organize their information searches by issues and to eliminate candidates based on issue stances. In contrast, older adults were more likely to organize their information searches by candidates and to engage in satisficing.     

Achieving optimal fines for political bribery: A suggested political reform

Allowing appropriately high fines for political bribery would eliminate: (1) the large and allocatively arbitrary bribes paid to our most senior, retiring, politicians (2) the more moderate, but ubiquitous and still allocatively arbitrary bribes paid to less senior, but strategically successful, politicians, and (3) the permanent loss, through censure or expulsion, of some highly proficient, but strategically less successful, legislative representatives. Moreover, with fines appropriately set, the incentives theoretically describing the entire political system would be elevated from allocative arbitrariness to approximately Pareto optimal levels. However, to create legislatures generally willing to support these wholesale political-economic improvements, legally trained individuals must be exorcized from the legislatures.     

Waiting for privatization in developing countries: Towards the integration of economic and non-economic explanations

The intention of this paper is to examine the political and administrative limits on the effective implementation of privatization in developing countries and so to present a challenge to the view that slow progress is primarily attributable to economic constraints. After examining these economic aspects, the paper provides an explanatory framework which incorporates those political and administrative processes central to an understanding of what happens to state economic policies in practice. The significance of these processes is demonstrated by drawing on research material from India, Pakistan, Thailand, and Sri Lanka. The conclusion drawn is that responses to pressures for economic reform will be determined, not so much by economic criteria as by the political and bureaucratic resources available to decision makers. Since policy processes in developing countries show considerable variety it is likely that there will be substantial variations in the practical achievement of privatization objectives.