Abstract
Edited by David McDonald, someone with a long history of direct promotion of publicly provided services and the contested nature of these goods in the current environment of a rightward turn in capitalist governance, Making Public in a Privatized World: The Struggle for Essential Services consists of 13 case studies highlighting communities’ successes in taking back control of essential services, including water, waste management, healthcare, electricity, sanitation, and finance, after privatization efforts did not lead to desired outcomes. Specific countries studied include Colombia, South Africa, Guatemala, (urban) India, Uganda, Bangladesh, Turkey, Bolivia, and the United States. Unique to the collection of the case studies is the fundamental desire to answer the question “What do we want?” as opposed to “What don’t we want?” While it is relatively easy to determine what it is we don’t want or don’t like, it is oftentimes more difficult to enunciate what it is that we want. The effort needed to successfully address the “What do we want?” question has led to the support of pro-public solutions that have looked to government entities for assistance; for those areas where the government hasn’t been a strong enough presence to support a pro-public approach, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), community groups, labor unions, faith groups, and not-for-profits have stepped in to fill the void. Such groups and their work to generate positive outcomes are analyzed in great depth throughout Making Public in a Privatized World.
The substance of the book is divided into four parts, with the first part, Engaging Communities and Workers, presenting examples of workers and communities working together to improve humans’ access to water in Colombia; informal reclaimers’ contributions to waste management in Brazil, India, and Colombia; labor-community alliances in South Africa; and healthcare services in Guatemala. This part of the book is the most successful—the examples provide a cohesive narrative clearly related to the theme of the book, making public in a privatized world. The research methods include collaboration, fieldwork, and focus groups, with a particularly interesting case study starting with: It is a beautiful Sunday morning and the town is still sleeping. Six public water utility workers share a tinto (coffee) before loading into a jeep that takes us deep into the hillsides of Valle del Cauca, Colombia, for a popular assembly on a proposed collaboration between the community aqueduct and local unions (23)
These are the opening sentences to chapter 2, “Work of the ants: labor and community reinventing public water in Colombia” by Madeleine Bélanger Dumontier, Susan Spronk, and Adrian Murray. According to Bélanger Dumontier, Spronk, and Murray, “In this way, the participatory nature of the research contributed in its own way to celebrating the ‘public’ nature of these partnerships” (24). When bringing together groups of individuals via planning meetings, interviews, field visits, and focus groups, not only do the researchers foster discussion of ways forward in response to criticisms of neoliberal water policies, but the meetings contribute to the development of a collaborative project as part of Bélanger Dumontier, Spronk, and Murray’s research. The chapter further discusses the history of the labor-community alliance in Colombia, the building of trust and setting of objectives, the sharing of knowledge, and the raising of environmental awareness.
The second part of the book, Recognizing Quasi-Public Actors, utilizes the Indian Ujala Yojana electrification program, the Community-Led Total Sanitation approach, and the provision of health services in Uganda via faith-based organizations (FBOs) as examples of quasi-public outcomes improving standards of living. As an example, Bipasha Baruah, author of chapter 6, "Electrified publics and informal settlements in urban India,” assesses the Ujala Yojana electrification program as it relates to its impacts on access, quality of service, theft of electricity, and tenure security, using research methods including pricing surveys, focus groups, and interviews. Specific NGOs played key roles in the successes of the electrification program; these NGOs worked to create a relationship with a corporatized public utility (Ahmedabad Electricity Company [AEC]) to bring legal electrical services to the slums, with the chapter discussing the “successes and limitations of the project as well as its implications for pro-public electricity services” (104). A positive result associated with slum electrification was the development of effective ways to deal with land-tenure issues. An impediment to the work of the NGOs was the absence of policy guidance and financial assistance, with AEC rejecting some of the NGOs’ recommendations because the NGOs lacked an officially recognized role. While this research is not as focused on the daily interactions of those involved as in some other case studies, the research is qualitative in nature and tells an interesting story.
Gender-equitable access to water in Bangladesh, access to water in Medellín, Colombia, and democratic control over renewable energy in Africa are key to part 3, Promoting Equity and Democratic Control. An example of what the reader finds in this section of the book is chapter 9, “Gender equity, citizenship and public water in Bangladesh” by Farhana Sultana, Chandra Talpade Mohanty, and Sarah Miraglia. The authors focus on the “gendered nature and importance of public water and the process of (re)publicization” in Bangladesh, and what would be needed for “socially just and equitable water systems that are responsive to women’s needs and interests” (149). Using a feminist ethnographic methodology and extensive field research, the authors find social relationships impact a person’s access to water. They further learn that being able to make empowering decisions is contingent on accounting for, and recognizing inequalities between women; women were seeking equitable access to water as a way forward toward recognition as citizens. Relating back to the overarching theme of part 3, the authors recognize that it is “publicly provided services, accounted for and democratically allocated and not quasi-legal and informal means of access to water that will lead to the effective meeting of demand for water” (160). Access to water is not just about water but also about access to rights and rectifying injustices; it is about citizenship.
The last part of the book, part 4, Financing Public Services, is the least successful, with a shift in focus to the financing of public services in countries including Turkey, the United States, and Bolivia. The chapters discuss the financing of public services: public banking, insourcing (or reverse privatization), and water-sector reforms. Especially out of place is the inclusion of chapter 13, Mildred E. Warner’s “Pragmatic publics in the heartland of capitalism: Local services in the United States.” While it is a well-written and researched chapter, it feels out of place as the research methods are less qualitative and more quantitative, which differs from the primarily case-study analysis used throughout the collection. However, Warner’s policy recommendations are interesting in that they emphasize local governments considering themselves obligated to offer their citizens efficient failsafe services, no matter the reliance (or not) on privatized services; she also concludes that to retain cost savings, local governments must retain some level of control, while a privatized approach is unstable, risky, and costly. Warner also maintains it is important to preserve the capacity to offer services, i.e., maintain mixed delivery, and, lastly, she reminds the reader that efficiency is not the end goal if society also appreciates public values.
It should be noted that the term “public good” is used throughout the book, though it’s not used in the same way economists would define the term, i.e., a good that is both non-rival and non-excludable. What authors are actually referring to is the concept of a publicly provided good, i.e., a good that is either rival and/or excludable and is considered a good that users believe should be provided using mechanisms other than private markets, e.g., community groups or government entities. While the message of the book remains clear to the reader, this alternative definition of public goods could be particularly confusing to undergraduate students who, for example, may be reading the text as part of a public finance course. Alternatively, the book’s use of the term could be used to highlight how economists think of public goods, yet also allow for students to see how privatization does not always provide the outcomes desired. Overall, however, I highly recommend this book for anyone who wants a well-reasoned and well-researched analysis of the provision of public services in opposition to the neoliberal forces around the world trying to eliminate public provision in favor of the supposedly preferred efficiency of privatized provision.