Privatisation and Development: Theory, Policy and Evidence

This book seeks to interrogate privatisation in terms of its effectiveness vis-a-vis its stated goals on the one hand and more fundamentally in terms of its success in delivering economic development. It seeks to explain why privatisation was successful in the UK and other OECD countries and why it has not met with equal success in developing countries. In this regard, it further seeks to examine the policy prescriptions of the IMF and World Bank vis-a-vis the conceptualised benefits and theoretical assumptions underlying these supposed benefits. It examines the extent to which culture and customs, indeed the mode of production, stand in determinate relationship to the goals, techniques and outcome of the process. It further examines the extent to which the socioeconomic and moral consequences of privatisation have been ignored in pursuit of the ideological imperative implicit in the Washington Consensus. Hence, the book's main purpose is first to contribute to the reflective thought that must necessarily be part of theory validation and second to provide the basis for a balanced and empirically-valid theory of privatisation.