Public-Private Partnerships as Collaborative Projects: Testing the Theory on Cases from EU and Russia

ABSTRACT

How do public-private partnerships (PPPs) differ from traditional public procurement and what role should governments play in them? This article views PPPs as collaborative projects with imperfect information between parties. Typical public procurement contracts tackle asymmetric information problems yet limit feasibility of projects: some are not profitable enough to ensure private party participation. Partnership improves feasibility; this justifies PPPs as a form of public good provision and demonstrates how they differ from procurement. Four UK and Russian cases of PPP projects are analyzed within the above framework, focusing on types of contracts, contributions of both partners, and specific partnership elements.     

Evaluating Transport Infrastructure Projects in Low Data Environments: An Application to Nigeria

Transport infrastructure consumes a large fraction of the development assistance envelope. Yet procedures for evaluating transport infrastructure projects are typically ad-hoc. This paper proposes an approach to assess the differential impacts of alternative investment proposals in data constrained environments where conducting reliable impact analyses is difficult. We first demonstrate a technique for estimating the cost of transporting products to markets. We then estimate the impact of improving the road network on economic activity. Finally, we perform simulations to demonstrate a methodology for prioritising alternative investments. The analysis demonstrates a pragmatic, though rigorous, approach for assessing transport infrastructure benefits.     

Regional Governance in Unitary States: Lessons from the Netherlands in Comparative Perspective

There is a growing need for regional governance in Western European countries. Unitary states and nations like the Netherlands, France and England do not (yet) have fully fledged, general purpose intermediate governments that can fulfil this need. This article reviews the institutional arrangements for regional governance in the countries mentioned. The existing arrangements turn out to have a great deal in common and show comparable flaws. Drawing on experience from France and the Netherlands, and against the background of the debate on elected Regional Assemblies in England, the article reflects on the need for an autonomous regional government and the requirements it has to meet.     

Government/non-profit Partnerships,Public Services Delivery,and Civil Society in the Transitional Nations of Eastern Europe: Lessons from the Hungarian Experience

Abstract

This paper will explore the complexity of the relationship between government and non-profit organizations in the context of Hungary on the cusp of accession to the European Union. First it will argue that the concept of a civil society is in fact not a unitary one but, rather, a cluster of linked concepts. It will argue further that it is essential to deconstruct this cluster of concepts in order to develop a common language. Without such a language it is not possible to debate the achievement of a civil society, or otherwise. This article is a contribution to the development of such conceptual clarity.     

The Health Action Zone Initiative: Lessons from Plymouth

The article considers the impact of the Health Action Zone (HAZ) in Plymouth through a theory-based evaluation that combines theories of change and realistic evaluation. The study assesses the impact of 37 projects sponsored by this HAZ. The extent to which these projects used a realistic evaluation/theories of change framework and achieved their objectives are evaluated. The impact of these projects on the three main objectives of Plymouth HAZ – developing partnership working; modernising the care system; and tackling health inequalities – is assessed and explanations for the success or failure of specific projects are identified.     

The Militarization of Urban Marginality: Lessons from the Brazilian Metropolis

This article examines the workings and effects of the penalization of poverty in urban Brazil at century's turn to uncover the deep logic of punitive containment as state strategy for the management of dispossessed and dishonored populations in the polarizing city in the age of triumphant neoliberalism. It shows how ramifying criminal violence (fed by extreme inequality and mass poverty), class and color discrimination in judicial processing, unchecked police brutality, and the catastrophic condition and chaotic operation of the carceral system combine to make the aggressive deployment of the penal apparatus in Brazil a surefire recipe for further disorder and disrespect for the law at the bottom of the urban hierarchy and steers the country into an institutional impasse. The policy of punitive containment pursued by political elites as a complement to the deregulation of the economy in the 1990s leads from the penalization to the militarization of urban marginality, under which residents of the declining favelas are treated as virtual enemies of the nation, tenuous trust in public institutions is undermined, and the spiral of violence accelerated. Brazil thus serves as a historical revelator of the full consequences of the penal disposal of the human detritus of a society swamped by social and physical insecurity. Drawing parallels between penal activity in the Brazilian and the U.S. metropolis further reveals that the neighborhoods of urban relegation wherein the marginal and stigmatized fractions of the postindustrial working class concentrate are the prime targets and proving ground upon which the neoliberal penal state is concretely being assembled, tried, and tested. Their study is therefore of urgent interest to analysts of international politics and state power at the dawn of the twenty-first century.     

Multidimensional Poverty in Crisis: Lessons from Zimbabwe

Zimbabwe experienced an acute social, political, and economic crisis from 2001 to 2008 and is now on a recovery path. This paper explores changes in poverty between 2001, 2007, and 2011–2012 using an Alkire–Foster multidimensional poverty index. Results indicate a large increase in poverty across multiple dimensions of household wellbeing between 2001 and 2007 (the start of the crisis peak), followed by a decrease in poverty between 2007 and 2011–2012, during the recovery period. Decomposition of the index shows significantly different trends in poverty dimensions over time with implications for short- and long-term social assistance policies.     

Local Government Partnerships in Urban Management: The Case of South Asia

The article examines emerging partnerships in local government in South Asia. It argues that public private partnerships at local authority level tend to emerge where existing service deficiencies are greatest and most often involve the private voluntary sector. These partnerships typically function as 'hybrid' concessions where the private operator performs a service and collects a fee but without responsibility for capital investment. Many of the most successful partnerships have operated at the most localised level involving a coalition of stakeholders under local authority co-ordination. However, few partnerships have developed adequate mechanisms for joint planning, management and monitoring of services.     

The Obstacles to Foreign Aid Harmonization: Lessons from Decentralization Support in Indonesia

Relying on a new institutional economics analysis of transaction costs, the 2005 Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness emphasizes donor harmonization as an intermediate objective for increasing the effectiveness of foreign assistance in bringing about development outcomes. Surveys on adherence to the Paris Declaration commitments so far suggest that foreign aid donors are lagging behind targets. This paper explores the political and bureaucratic obstacles faced by bilateral and multilateral aid organizations trying to harmonize aid at the country level. Looking at foreign support for the decentralization and local governance sector in Indonesia??where a ??bold experiment?? in harmonization failed to bring about improved donor coordination??I find evidence that the lack of harmonization can be linked to some of the characteristic pathologies of foreign aid: the dominance of the strategic interests of some donors and the structure of bureaucratic incentives within aid agencies. These traditional problems work through a pathway that is underexplored in the literature: by enabling a lack of coordination among agencies within the recipient government, donors create barriers to harmonization of their own programming. However, I conclude by noting that government coordination failure may not be as much of a problem as donors make it out to be. Decisions about governance and decentralization are necessarily contentious and political. In the case where donors succeed in bringing about government coordination in the interest of their own harmonization, they risk exercising harmful leverage that leads to premature resolution of domestic policy disputes, thereby undermining the Paris Declaration principle of country ownership.     

Police Collapse in Authoritarian Regimes: Lessons from Tunisia

The quick unraveling of authoritarian systems specifically designed to bear social pressure during revolutions is puzzling. Building on the 2011 Tunisian revolution, this article analyzes the collapse of the police apparatus during the 2011 revolution. In line with Way and Levitsky's study of authoritarian collapse, this article shows that the low cohesion and low scope of the security forces is one of the main factors explaining the rapid collapse of one of the Arab world's seemingly most solid repressive systems. At the theoretical level, this article will demonstrate that preference falsification is a double-edged sword. On the one hand, it can nourish authoritarian resilience. On the other, it can also weaken repressive regimes by making core members of the regime overestimate the loyalty of the low-ranking members of the security apparatus.     

Strategic Change in Terrorist Movements: Lessons from Hamas

Existing literature is weak in explaining strategic change among terrorist movements, especially regarding the question of why these organizations often switch between contesting the external enemy, usually the government or the occupying power, and the internal arena in which they compete against fellow rebel groups. A rebel force facing diminishing returns from a formerly successful tactic with no equally effective tactical substitute in sight is likely to switch from conflict against a government to achieve dominance in the rebel camp. The terrorist movement will switch from the external to the internal arena even if such substitution compromises the overall goals of the rebel camp. The following article explores these dynamics in Hamas's strategy in the latest round of conflict between the movement and Israel.     

Measuring Corruption in Infrastructure: Evidence from Transition and Developing Countries

This paper examines what we can say about the extent and impact of corruption in infrastructure using existing evidence. There is evidence that most perceptions measures appear to be very weak proxies for the actual extent of corruption in the infrastructure sector, largely (but inaccurately) measuring petty rather than grand corruption. Survey evidence is more reliable, but limited as a tool for differentiating countries in terms of access to infrastructure finance or appropriate policy models. The paper suggests that a focus on bribe payments as the indicator of the costs of corruption in infrastructure may be misplaced.     

The Governance Narrative: Key Findings and Lessons from the Erc's Whitehall Programme

This article provides a personal interpretation of the key findings of the Economic and Social Research Council's Whitehall Programme. I tell the distinctive story of 'governance'— of fragmentation, networks, unintended consequences and diplomacy — challenging the dominant, managerial account of change in British govern-ment since 1979. I present a view of the world in which networks rival markets and bureaucracy as ways of allocating resources and co-ordinating policy and its implementation.     

The Dynamics of Multi-organizational Partnerships: an Analysis of Changing Modes of Governance

Multi-organizational partnerships are now an important means of governing and managing public programmes. They typically involve business, community and not-for-profit agencies alongside government bodies. Partnerships are frequently contrasted with competitive markets and bureaucratic hierarchies. A more complex reality is revealed once partnerships as an organizational form are distinguished from networks as a mode of social co-ordination or governance. Data from studies of UK urban regeneration partnerships are used to develop a four-stage partnership life cycle: pre-partnership collaboration; partnership creation; partnership programme delivery; and partnership termination. A different mode of governance - network, market or hierarchy - predominates at each stage. Separating organizational form from mode of governance enables a richer understanding of multi-organizational activity and provides the basis from which theory and practice can be developed. The key challenge for partnerships lies in managing the interaction of different modes of governance, which at some points will generate competition and at other points collaboration.     

新兴大国崛起的经验教训

迄今为止,中国学术界围绕大国崛起这一主题分别在20世纪80年代末90年代初、20世纪90年代初中期和2006年后进行过三次较为集中的讨论.实际上,当今时代中国的复兴和快速发展已经成为举世瞩目的事实,如何看待历史上主要大国的兴衰历程,如何吸取新兴大国崛起的经验和教训并从中得到有益的借鉴,已成为中国当前十分重大的战略问题.     

Public Philanthropic Partnerships: The Changing Nature of Government/Foundation Relationships in the US

Relationships between foundations and the government in the United States have long been difficult with government attitudes ranging from hostile to at best indifferent in the past. American foundations have long claimed innovation as a distinctive function to perform in society in order to preserve their legitimacy. One hundred years after the rise of the large-scale American philanthropic foundation, however, the relationships between foundations and government have come into flux. Between demands from fiscally-strapped local governments and a new openness of state and federal governments to develop collaborative relationships, a variety of public-philanthropic partnerships have emerged that question the traditional roles and distribution of labor between philanthropy and the state. This article traces the historical development of the government/foundation relationship and discusses its changing nature using recession-induced ad hoc partnerships, the emergence of foundation liaison offices, and the Obama Administration’s Social Innovation Fund and Investing in Innovation program as examples.     

The Importance of Understanding the Anti-Corruption Legislation to Promote Corruption Reporting: Lessons from Mauritius

ABSTRACT

Anti-corruption campaigns usually focus on educating the population. However, little is known about the impact of knowledge, especially understanding of the anti-corruption legislation and the function of Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) body in practice. This study sheds light on the factors influencing the likelihood of reporting a case of corruption in Mauritius. Cross-sectional data are compiled from a household survey with a sample size of 380 observations. To perform the investigation, an ordered probit model is employed. Knowledge about the Prevention of Corruption Act (PoCA) is found to be a crucial variable in determining the functional form of the empirical model. In general, media consumption and knowledge about the PoCA increases the probability of reporting an act of corruption, while Interest in politics decreases the likelihood of reporting a case of corruption to the ICAC. In addition, age, educational attainment, income level, family size and civil status are found to be important predictors of corruption reporting.     

Joined-Up Government in The Netherlands: Experiences with Program Ministries

Over the last 15 years there have been many experiments with joined-up (also known as whole of) government practices, aimed at horizontal coordination to overcome the fragmentation of vertical governmental structures due to departmentalism and New Public Management. These practices were initiated to address wicked problems and to better interact with society at large. Now that there are signs that the rhetoric of joined-up government is winding down and many joined-up government developments are being dismantled, it is time to evaluate this approach. This is especially appropriate as some suggest that the overall impact of these developments may be relatively small, despite (overly) optimistic claims made in the past. In this article we take experiences with joined-up government in the Netherlands as the departing point for a critical discussion of this approach. By comparing the Dutch experiences with those in other countries, we will draw a picture of the challenges and dilemmas of horizontal coordination in the vertical world of government.