The Economy of China

Evidence suggests that following liberalisation reforms in India, public sector contributions to social development projects responsible for public goods allocation and the provision of services have receded in favour of an enlarged role for private sector initiatives, particularly through public-private partnerships. As part of a “good governance” agenda, the state is embracing such partnerships, modelled on information communication technology (ICT), within a wider development strategy (ICTD) to improve goods allocation and government's image as a trustworthy agent. This has also coincided with a changing political economy that has granted greater authority to more localised units of government over economic and developmental processes. This paper examines a case study of Urban e-Seva, an ICTD public-private partnership in Hyderabad, and couches it in a larger examination of contemporary social development in India. The paper concludes that government needs to be embedded in public-private partnerships, that it must continue to be at the forefront of allocation strategies in general, and that globalisation is strongly shaped by public institutions operating at the sub-national level. Furthermore, reforms are needed to correct for globalisation and liberalisation's inabilities to foster proper social development in India.     

Public–private partnerships (ppps) in global health: the good,the bad and the ugly

Global Health Partnerships (ghps) have become ubiquitous within global health governance (ghg). Even before the onset of the global financial crisis public–private partnerships (ppps) were an omnipresent policy tool in global health and in the current austerity climate ppps have been heralded as an effective way to address a growing resource gap in ghg. Despite their omnipresence, ghps have not received adequate attention from critical scholars; few efforts have been made conceptually and theoretically to grasp how ppps are transforming the logic of ghg. We argue that ghps have contributed to the emergence of a complex global health governance architecture in which private solutions (market mechanism) are generally privileged over public approaches. Drawing on Gramscian conceptualisations of public/private, we suggest that the reshaping of the private and public realm inherent to ppps represents a further deepening of the neoliberal management of individuals and populations, allowing private interest to become more embedded within the public sphere and to influence global and national health policy making. This undermines the attempt to improve global health results as the inequitable distribution of social determinants of health, especially poverty and social exclusion, remain the main barriers to achieving health for all.     

Governance in Public and Private Management

This article analyses the effect of governance in the delivery of public services, and the advantages of collaboration with the private sector in the provision of these public services. The article is not intended to be the conclusions drawn from an empirical study, but rather is based on the experience of a practitioner who has worked as a civil servant in the public sector and as a manager in the private sector. The advantages of private participation are listed, without prejudicing the role of regulator which must be exercised by the public sector.     

DIFFERENCES IN LEARNING PRACTICES AND VALUES IN NORTH–SOUTH CITY PARTNERSHIPS: TOWARDS A BROADER UNDERSTANDING OF MUTUALITY

This article addresses twinning between local governments in North and South, contributing to the past decade's discourse on institutional twinning in this journal. Local governments have increasingly become recognised as relevant actors in international development cooperation through city‐to‐city cooperation structures, which have been praised as an effective mechanism for local government capacity building. This article discusses the learning practices and the extent to which new knowledge is valued and adopted by twinning participants in both North and South and moreover whether learning benefits are mutual. In a study of three partnerships between Dutch municipalities and partner cities in Peru, South Africa and Nicaragua, 36 participants were interviewed. The findings reveal that learning in city‐to‐city partnerships is not mutual between North and South and that the benefits of ‘shared learning’—a rhetoric commonly used in the twinning discourse—are limited. Instead, other opportunities for mutuality arise for Northern municipalities from political and strategic benefits, such as staff loyalty and motivation. Mutuality in twinning hence deserves a broader interpretation than learning alone so that twinning benefits can be identified and maximised for both North and South, keeping cities interested and motivated. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Using Organizational Collaboration and Community Partnerships to Transition Families from Homelessness to Home Ownership: The HomeBuy5 Program

For more than a decade, the HomeBuy5 Program has successfully helped families who were homeless find an apartment, while working with them to develop a plan to move from homelessness to homeownership. This article provides an historical overview of how the program developed and evolved, a detailed discussion of the program's process and structure, the role of organizational collaboration and community partners, and demographic information on the families that have been served. It is argued that this program can be a prototype for other communities as they increase their efforts to eliminate homelessness.     

A literature review of partnerships

In today＇s competitive era, all organizations and enterprises, including small and medium enterprises （SMEs）, should have collaboration with each other to survive and they cannot be globally successful by working alone. A partnership is the relationship existing between two or more persons or entities that join to carry on a trade or business. Each one contributes money, property, labor or skill, and expects to share the profits and losses of the business. There are different types of partnerships, and organizations should inform from them and apply from it in suitable cases. Each partnership has its own advantages and disadvantages as well. This paper aims to describe some types of partnerships between governments, communities, new social movements and firms.     

The Commonwealth of Nations and the EU after the ‘Global’ Crisis: Rethinking Post-2015 ‘Global’ Development?

Abstract

The continuing ‘global’ crisis has accelerated divergences between regions, especially between the ‘rising’ global South, the European Union (EU) of the PIIGS (Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece and Spain) and Cyprus, which belongs to both the Commonwealth and the EU. This article studies the emerging ‘vertical’ divergences between the EU and the global South, especially around the so-called Economic Partnership Agreements, and the parallel ‘horizontal’ divergences among Anglophone, Francophone (the Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie) and Lusophone (the Comunidade dos Países de Língua Portuguesa) Commonwealths, with their inheritance of emulation and competition. It focuses on the possibilities of enhanced human/citizen security to propose an analysis that challenges established perspectives and points towards prospects for Commonwealth ‘schools’ of international relations/development.     

Researcher–practitioner partnerships and crime analysis: a case study in action research

This paper describes a recent researcher–practitioner partnership designed to address the challenges faced by law enforcement agencies when implementing crime control and prevention strategies. Using an action research methodology, the project embedded a group of trained students within the law enforcement community to assist with local crime problems and supplement existing crime analysis and research capabilities in six agency units. Results of this case study offer several implications for future researcher–practitioner partnerships focused on crime analysis and present an enhanced set of metrics for evaluating success.     

Working On,Through and Around the State: The Deep Marketisation of Development in the Asia-Pacific

Abstract

This article describes an important new push by international financial institutions towards broadening and deepening capitalist social relations in the underdeveloped world in ways well beyond Washington Consensus structural adjustment or even post-Washington Consensus forms of institutionally-oriented “participatory neo-liberalism.” Described here as the “deep marketisation of development” (or simply “deep marketisation”), this process is attracting increasing resources that are formally allocated directly to private actors around states, while also demanding and promoting shifts in state form and function that relate to cultivating “enabling environments” for capital and facilitating “access to finance.” The article begins by conceptualising deep marketisation and placing it in historical and political context. The second section presents examples of deep marketisation in action in the work of the World Bank's private sector arm, the International Finance Corporation, in the Asia-Pacific. The article concludes by highlighting some serious concerns with the deep marketisation agenda.     

The Government’s Regulatory Obligations to Public Utilities Franchise

Under the public utilities franchise system, the executive branch may transfer the task of providing public utilities services for the common good to a private party. It should undertake to regulate and prevent the private party from pursuing its own interests to the detriment of public interest while discharging its duty under the public utilities franchise. Since any public interest must be enjoyed by all individuals, we can say that the obligations owed under administrative regulations aim at the ultimate goal of increasing individual welfare. In the public utilities franchise system, regulations of this kind can be divided into six different categories: maintaining and promoting necessary market competition, ensuring the continuity of public utilities services, ensuring non-discriminatory provision of public utilities services, ensuring the quality of public utilities services, ensuring reasonable charges for public utilities services, and ensuring the conservation of energy and protection of the environment while providing public utilities services. The absence of governmental regulation of the provision of public utilities and of reforms in such services in China has harmed both public interest and the rights and interests of consumers. Some of the problems caused include chaotic market access for public utilities, no guarantee of the sustainability of public utilities, the failure of the universality of public utilities, declining quality of public utilities, sharp rise in the prices of public utilities, insufficient regulations on the conservation of energy and environmental protection, and so on. In order to achieve the effective implementation of the administrative regulations and obligations therein with respect to public utilities and the maximization of public interest, the Chinese government should enhance its consciousness of regulating public utilities, improve the legal system to regulate public utilities, perfect the regulatory system for public utilities, and establish a system of liability to compensate for failures in regulation.