The Politics of Public Private Partnerships by Flinders - Book Report/Review Example

?Introduction Modernisation agenda may be one of the safest moves or sound alternatives that advanced countries like the United Kingdom will have to employ and as central tool of governance. Concerning this, the concept of public-private partnerships (PPPs) is not new to this country, which started from the first of May in 1997. The PPPs are becoming important components of the UK’s modernisation agenda for the labour government. There are various issues linked to the move to go for modernisation agenda. One is politics. Concerning this, the work at hand presents the argument of Matthew Flinders regarding the politics of PPPs. The validity of his argument regarding the associated costs of PPPs is the essential point presented in this paper. Flinders’ major argument The article “The Politics of Public-Private Partnerships” is a particular argument that presents PPPs as potential factors that provide the opportunity for political issues and tensions to proliferate in the government (Flinders, 2005). According to Flinders, political issues and tensions are largely been overlooked, which may be eventually observed from the point of view of efficiency, risk, complexity, accountability and governance and the future of state projects. Through PPP, efficiency gains and service improvements in some policy areas may be observed, but based on the thoughts of Flinders these also have corresponding political and democratic costs. In other words, PPPs may have provided significant benefits at some point, but on the other hand, these can only be generated with substantial political and democratic costs. For Flinders, short-term benefits linked to PPPs may be outweighed by the long-term problems. Therefore, it emphasises more of the probable threats or risks. Thus, Flinders adopted the definition of PPP as a risk-sharing relationship existing between the public and private sectors just to result to the desired public policy outcome. In order to explicate this point, Flinders was able to subdivide his arguments into various sections. The first section deals with the Labour government’s approach to public sector reform since May 1, 1997. In the second section, the author examines Public Interest Companies (PICs) prior to a more detailed analysis of the Private Finance Initiative (PFI) in the UK. The third section introduces the framework to elaborate the idea of the political issues and debates around PPPs. Then finally, the last section provides information concerning the reasons why the government may commit to PPPs. Central to the idea concerning the first section is the prevailing diverse models of service delivery that the public and private sectors implemented. This at some point, according to Flinders provided the opportunity to the birth of political administrative perspective. The second section tries to enhance the idea of ‘back-door privitisation’ which may have potentially evolved from PICs down to PFI. In this case, various political concerns surfaced and the issue was far from monetary consideration. The third section introduces some relevant themes surrounding PPPs in the UK. Based on the argument of Flinders, these themes may have substantially provide opportunity for the public sectors to be served, but the bottom line of these themes may provide implication for the advantage only of the few and not the majority. The fourth section is a significant confirmation of the elemental drawbacks linked to controversial PFI deals. However, the government seems to have no other choice, but to continuously rely on the private sectors in the future to provide public services resulting to partnerships with associated political challenges. It is now important to consider some remarkable insights regarding the stand of Flinders on PPPs. Key insights In this section, the work at hand presents the key insights into the relationship between government and business based on the relevant points from the article. One major insight that can be generated from the article includes the point that the government is eventually receiving a significant influence from the business world. This is a fundamental point that will provide the opportunity to understand the changing nature of the contexts in which government and business interacts. From the start, it is the government that has the greater power to support the business world and sustain it to become more efficient and productive. The government’s fundamental role is to formulate policies that are vital to the success of every one including every business that operates publicly. After all, the business is a remarkable component of the public entities where the government has to focus its attention. The business world is a relevant component of the public to which the government’s focus should prevail. In fact, the very point of PPPs and PFI is basically to provide greater opportunity for the public in order to improve or enhance itself. There are some opportunities that the government cannot by itself provide for the public due to various undertakings that it has to deal with. It is in this reason that little by little, some remarkable changes surfaced. Some of these changes may go beyond the traditional nature of public policies, leading further on to how the business world has significantly gained its higher political power and strength. Every business, especially in line with profit making will really have to mean what it takes to be in the business. In line with this, business organisations will have to influence the government in the delivery of public policies. They even will have to assist in the delivery of public policies. All of these will have to be initiated for the sole purpose of achieving high monetary gain and ensuring business will have to substantially flow and even expand for a higher level of efficiency and productivity. This definitely has led the government and the business world to interact together in a changing nature. At this point, especially in the case of what Flinders presented, one may be able to identify why the business world might have gained not just a higher monetary advantage, but a substantial level of political power. If the state cannot deliver certain level of standard services by which the public demanded with the available resources, things might diffuse PPPs into policy fields, which at some point may have loosen up the limits of the private sector and provided them up with a high political gain on the process (Flinders, 2005). This is one essential point that Flinders would want to emphasise that in the midst of efficiency gains and service improvements in some areas, at some point political and democratic costs might also be given up. This is the very reason why the business realm nowadays has strong political power and even may have undeniably influenced the policy-decision making of the government. For example, there are many prevailing decisions of the states that will have to consider not just the public in general, but at the most specific level will have to take into account the welfare of the business, the one that fuels the economy. The onset of the global warming for instance would require business to have its own stand, because the government has given the private sector such as those that would include businesses to experience high level of capacity to be involved in the actual decision-making process of what policies to implement. After all, the government is seeing the ultimate role of the business sector, as the private entity to help deliver what might have to be the standard services that may go beyond the limit of the government. However, it is not just good enough to have some remarkable insights concerning the stand of Flinders on PPPs, but the assessment of the author’s mentioned costs will be a remarkable point of view for consideration. Evaluation In this section, the work at hand provides the evaluation of essential ideas concerning the importance of the article and its central argument. According to Flinders, with PPP, efficiency gains and service improvements in some policy areas may be observed, but these also have corresponding political and democratic costs. This is evidently the central idea of Flinders for the entire article, and so there are various reasons to consider why this point of view is important. First, by looking at it at the political cost, with PPPs the government will have to try to give a significant power or a form of responsibility for the private sector to emancipate actions that are supposed to be initiated by the government. For this reason, the government will be entrusting something significant, like a special function it plays for the welfare of the public. This can be observed from the case of private funding of public infrastructure for instance. It is important to consider that this can be advantageous on the side of the government because this will transfer the risks to private parties (Hodge, 2004). However, one must not be able to only focus on this, but there are other essential concepts involved in here combining together the idea of risk shifting and risk sharing. In the long-term contract alone, the government must be able to consider a higher investment in specialized expertise, effective contract management, and strong governance structure (Bloomfield, 2006). This means that a substantial risk of PPPs may be due to failure to implement the right things to do. In a way, such failure may not only lead to failed expertise and ineffective contract management, but above all, a weaker form of governance structure on the part of the government. If this happens, then politically speaking, the private world may take over its control. Sad to say, policy makers may be influenced by the private sector especially in the case of long-term contract. This is due to the fact that private sectors may be engaging also for long-term contract with other parties, but at this point it must be solely for business undertakings. This therefore promotes a complex inception of interests, which at the bottom line may sound too political in nature. Therefore, considering the point of view of Flinders concerning the political cost associated with PPPs is important because it concerns the public welfare’s in general. Second, by looking at PPPs at the point of view of the associated democratic cost, one may be engaged in a discussion of the idea between democracy and consumerism. It is evident from the idea of Flinders that political consumerism is a significant implication linked to PPPs. At some point, others may believe that consumerism can influence politics in such a way that it will be consistent with democratic equality (Stolle et al., 2005). Flinders at some point may not contest this fact, but his substantial stand is evident that he is trying to convey to his readers that consumerism may hinder the smooth flow of democracy for as long as the private entities are given the political power and engaged in public matters by which the government has substantial political power and control. PPPs therefore are significant threat to democracy. After all, there are associated risks in it if not properly implemented and the government will lack the necessary requirements. As already stated, Bloomfield believes that the government should have specialized expertise, effective contract management, and strong governance structure when dealing with PPPs with the private entities. The democratic cost associated with PPPs is therefore an important consideration because it is clear that it might threaten democracy and ensures consumerism that will pave the way for the changing nature of governance that might only for the benefit of the few. Conclusion The work at hand just presented the argument concerning the validity of Flinders’ argument stating that there are costs linked to the emancipation of PPPs amidst of their promised and showed benefits. After finding remarkable support to Flinders’ claim, one can therefore say that there is a truth concerning his point of view, and that the government must be careful enough to engage in an arrangement through PPP with the private entities. After all, there are basic requirements involved upon counting on it on the part of the government. The entire activity requires specialized expertise, effective contract management, and strong governance structure. Thus, in the absence of these, Flinders’ argument may not substantially fail, but will continue to stand as a basic reminder concerning the use of PPPs model. References Bloomfield, P. (2006) ‘The Challenging Business of Long-Term Public-Private Partnerships: Reflections on Local Experience’. Public Administration Review, 66(3), 400-411. Flinders, M. (2005) ‘The Politics of Public-Private Partnerships’. The British Journal of Politics and International Relations 7, 215-239. Hodge, G. A. (2004) ‘The risky business of public-private partnerships’. Australian Journal of Public Administration, 63(4), 37-49. Stolle, D., Hooghe, M., and Michelette, M. (2005) ‘Politics in the Supermarket: Political Consumerism as a Form of Political Participation’. International Political Science Review, 26(3), 245-269. Read More