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Managing Change: Politicians and Experts in the Age of Privatization

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 March 2014

Andrew Massey
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Extract

THIS ARTICLE COMPARES THE US AND BRITISH EXPERIENCE OF privatization policies. In both countries there is no ‘proof’ that privatization has led to any empirically measurable benefit, or that the new structures are necessarily more consumer-oriented. First the perceived need for change in the public sector is explored, outlining the dynamic provided by the New Right. Next the importance of managerial and professional power to this process of change is explained, before the role of privatization as a ‘cutting edge’ used by liberal/conservative governments (that is governments conventionally labelled as conservative, but which have adopted ideologically liberal policies) is discussed. The paper concludes with an illustrative case study of the privatization of the British Electricity Supply Industry.

Type
Articles
Information
Government and Opposition , Volume 27 , Issue 4 , 01 October 1992 , pp. 486 - 501
Copyright
Copyright © Government and Opposition Ltd 1992

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References

1 Pitt, D. C. and Smith, B. C., The Computer Revolution in Public Administration, Brighton, Wheatsheaf, 1984 Google Scholar.

2 Dunleavy, P., ‘Explaining the Privatization Boom’, Public Administration, Volume 68, No. 1, 1986 Google Scholar London, RIPA/Basil Blackwell; A. Massey, Managing the Public Sector: A Comparative Analysis of Britain and the United States, Aldershot, Edward Elgar, 1992; A. Massey, Technocrats and Nuclear Politics, Aldershot, Gower, 1988.

3 OECD, Administration as Service, The Public as Client, Paris, OECD, 1987.

4 See Flynn, N., Public Sector Management, London, Harvester/Mrheatsheaf 1990 Google Scholar; Bacon, R. and Eltis, W., Britain’s Economic Problem: Too Few Producers, London, Macmillan, 1976 Google Scholar.

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7 ibid., p. 158

8 Flynn, op. cit., pp. 15–16.

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10 ibid., p. 1.

11 Johnson, T., Professions and Power, London, Macmillan 1972 Google Scholar; Illich, I., Disabling Professions, London, Boyars 1977 Google Scholar; Wilding, P., Professional Power and Social Welfare, London, Routledge & Kegan Paul 1982;Google Scholar Massey, 1988, op. cit.

12 Massey, 1988, op. cit., chs. 2–3

13 Dunleavy, ibid., 1986.

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16 OP, 1989, p. 40.

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18 ibid., pp. 4–11.

19 Salarnon, L. M., Auafisation, the Challenge to Management, Washington DC, NAPA, 1989, p. 37. Google Scholar See this publication for definitions of privatization.

20 Graham, C. and Prosser, T., Privatising Public Enterprises: Constitutions, the State and Regulation in Comparative Perspective, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1991, p. 91. Google Scholar

21 ibid.

22 Marsh, D., ‘Privatisation under Mrs Thatcher: a review of the literature’, Public Administration, Vol. 69, No. 4, pp. 459–80CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Graham and Prosser, op. cit., pp. 71–76.

23 Grant, 1989, pp. 85–112.

24 Graham and Prosser, op. cit., p. 5.

25 ibid., p. 140.

26 Littlechild, S., Regulation of British Telecommunications Profitability, London, HMSO, 1983 Google Scholar.

27 Graham and Prosser, op. cit., pp. 211–13.

28 ibid.

29 Various interviews.

30 Massey, op. cit., 1988.

31 ibid.

32 Various interviews.

33 Three generators, Powergen, National Power, and Nuclear electric; the National Grid Company; and 12 regional distribution companies.

34 See for example, Daily Telegraph, 13 August 1990.

35 See for example, The Guardian, 1 December 1989

36 See for example, The Guardian, 17 October 1990.