The privatization process: A worldwide perspective

✍ Scribed by Alasdair S. Roberts

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 1997
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 96 KB
• Volume: 16
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0276-8739
• DOI: 10.1002/(sici)1520-6688(199721)16:2<322::aid-pam12>3.0.co;2-l

✦ Synopsis

policy initiatives, including welfare reform, devolution, deregulation, and block grants. He is less interested in the differences among these policies than in their common goal of reallocating power to give more voice to stakeholders at local levels of government. Handler's analysis of decentralization draws heavily on the work of others, including Hasenfeld's [1992] explanations of how professional norms channel the delivery of services and Moe's [1989] account of how decentralization can be used for partisan and ideological purposes. With such a broad definition of decentralization, he can only conclude that decentralization is complicated and often used for political reasons to manage conflict. The value of decentralization for accomplishing policy objectives remains elusive.

Throughout the book, a strong political stance is evident. Handler is less interested in policy or bureaucracy than in power for the disadvantaged. Whether down from bureaucracy, up from bureaucracy, down with bureaucracy, or away from bureaucracy altogether, empowerment of the poor, the stigmatized, and the weak seldom succeeds. ''Empowerment,'' he concludes, ''rests on a basic contradiction-it envisages a democratic process of equality between participants who are unequal in terms of power and resources'' (p. 240).