Privatising the State

Description

Privatisation is supposed to bring about the retreat of the state. But what happens when the state privatises itself and even its core functions – tax collection, internal security, customs – are auctioned to the highest bidder? Does this imply a weakening of the state? Or, rather, does it lead to a scrutiny and control? The contributors to this work examine these phenomena in the former ‘Second’ and ‘Third World’ (Central and Eastern Europe, China and other parts of Asia and Africa) highlighting the very different ways in which continuing state interference and privatisation are implemented. What we are witnessing, according to this study, is not the eclipse of the state under the impact of globalisation but the end of the relatively short era of the ‘development state’ and its commanding role. privatisation does not necessarily lead to a weakening of state control; it leads to new, and often more informal, forms of interference and influence, and it is these that are the book’s central theme.

Reviews

‘The essays in Privatising the State are among the most original, provocative, and useful assessments of the intersection of public and private power that I have read in the last decade. […] Hibou’s own contribution offers especially powerful challenges to the conventions of both neo-liberal and leftist discourse on globalisation and privatisation as the dominant international trend for the relation between governments and the economy.’  — Professor Elizabeth Blackmar, Columbia University

‘Privatizing the State is an exciting book that will appeal to readers across many disciplines and to specialists on Africa, the Middle East, East and Southeast Asia, China, Russia, and Eastern Europe. The audience will include students in political economy, development economics, economic anthropology, critics of the IMF and the World Bank (including many from within those institutions), and almost anyone interested in making sense of the supposed ‘failures’ of neoliberal reform, the power attributed to the processes of globalization, or the current political and economic crises that appear to characterise so many regions of the world.’ — Professor Timothy Mitchell, New York University

Editor(s)

Privatisation is supposed to bring about the retreat of the state. But what happens when the state privatises itself and even its core functions - tax collection, internal security, customs - are auctioned to the highest bidder? Does this imply a weakening of the state? Or, rather, does it lead to a scrutiny and control? The contributors to this work examine these phenomena in the former 'Second' and 'Third World' (Central and Eastern Europe, China and other parts of Asia and Africa) highlighting the very different ways in which continuing state interference and privatisation are implemented. What we are witnessing, according to this study, is not the eclipse of the state under the impact of globalisation but the end of the relatively short era of the 'development state' and its commanding role. privatisation does not necessarily lead to a weakening of state control; it leads to new, and often more informal, forms of interference and influence, and it is these that are the book's central theme.