Political drivers of and barriers to Public-Private Partnerships – The role of political involvement

Abstract

Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. Abstract: The application and design of public-private partnerships between the extremes of purely public or purely private task fulfilment in public services is, in practice, subject to political processes. Decisions about PPPs (realisation, arrangement) are taken in the political arena and are therefore not theoretical optimisation exercises. The interests and resources of the actors who participate in the political decision-making process as well as the rules of the political process have a powerful influence on whether, in what areas, and in what form PPPs are realised. The distance between this output and solutions that are theoretically desirable given certain ideal goals (e.g. efficiency) and conditions can be referred to as political bias. So what role does the political process play in the realisation of PPPs, in the actual design of PPPs, and in their performance? Using public choice and institutional economics theory this paper analyses what chances of success PPPs have given the existing decision-making structures and the inherent incentives for participating actors, and in what way political influence is brought to bear in the first place. Furthermore, aspects of political science in this field (legitimacy, democratic control) are considered as well. Using PPPs there might be a trade-off between reduced democratic control, but also reinforced market control. It turns out that political involvement might be both an important driver as well as an obstacle for (efficient) PPPs and that it is likely to decrease efficiency either way. A case study for userfinancing PPPs in the transport sector highlights the problems of political renitency. Terms of use: Documents in

New Perspectives for Environmental Policies Through Behavioral Economics

“…User-fee financing that could additionally satisfy spending wishes while circumventing all the fetters of the budget open up more room for maneuver for political decision-makers; however, politically speaking, the consequences must be weighed up on acceptance markets-on the one hand the expected sanctions that result from "fee weariness" and on the other hand the reward promised by additional spending programs. Thus, political involvement might turn out to be a real barrier to PPP projects in the case of user-charge financing (Gawel 2011b). …”

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