Public‐Private Partnerships: Governance Scheme or Language Game?

Abstract

Accepting that there is much confusion in current debates about the use of public-private partnerships for public infrastructure projects, the article begins by considering the emergence of the 'PPP phenomenon' as a 'governance scheme' and as a 'language game'. The existence of several types of so-called PPPs, and motives for them, is noted, as are criticism of loose assumptions about them in the debates. The argument then focuses on private finance initiative (PFI) schemes as one branch of cross-sectoral mixing arrangements, and examines the benefits and costs of using this mechanism. The conclusion is a pessimistic one: in the PFI arrangement, the potential for the interests of the advocating government and the business partners to dominate over the public interest has been palpable. There is an urgent need to explore further the merit of these infrastructure 'partnerships' to ensure that they do advance the public interest.

Créer du consensus dans un partenariat public privé : analyse des compromis et arrangements managériaux

“…Au-delà, ce travail renforce la vision d'un manager privé impliqué dans les partenariats public/privé comme un véritable acteur frontalier devant articuler plusieurs logiques d'action (Noble et Jones, 2006;Jones et Noble, 2008). Cette recherche vient aussi compléter les apports de la littérature sur les contradictions et conflits présents au sein des différentes formes de partenariats public/privé (Jacobson et Choi, 2008;Kwak et al, 2009;Hodge et Greve, 2010;Hayllar et Wettenhall, 2010). Il nous montre un manager privé mettant en place des compromis entre plusieurs cités, ce qui contribue à questionner une représentation trop manichéenne opposant les acteurs du privé sensés être porteur de valeurs propres à la cité marchande et les acteurs publics se positionnant dans la cité civique.…”

“…Les résultats obtenus restent limités. La validité externe des rares travaux empiriques anglosaxons (Noble et Jones, 2006;Jones et Noble, 2008) reste à construire tant les spécificités culturelles, juridiques et sociales structurent ces partenariats public/privé (abré-gés en PPP) (Sadran, 2004;Hodge et Greve, 2010). Pour autant, un consensus se dégage de la littérature sur les PPP, pour faire de l'émergence d'une dynamique de coopération managériale au plus près du terrain l'un des facteurs clé de leur succès (Perrot, 2007;Voisin, 2007).…”

University Housing Development: A PPP Approach

“…Alongside the hope for efficiency comes the sharing of responsibility (Hodge & Greve, 2010;Steyer & Gilbert, 2013). Having access to the private sector is viewed as beneficial, but being able to ease responsibility is a means of mitigating risk and enhancing the long-term capacity of the public agency (Hodge & Greve, 2010;Koppenjan & Enserink, 2009;Steyer & Gilbert, 2013).…”

“…Having access to the private sector is viewed as beneficial, but being able to ease responsibility is a means of mitigating risk and enhancing the long-term capacity of the public agency (Hodge & Greve, 2010;Koppenjan & Enserink, 2009;Steyer & Gilbert, 2013). This creates an opportunity for risk-averse behavior for the public agency through the offloading of project burdens and freeing of resources for the execution of other projects.…”

“…Other potential benefits include reducing the cost of contracting (Forrer et al, 2010), financial improvements on borrowing rates (Hodge & Greve, 2010), relationship-building due to the longterm nature of the contract (Brinkerhoff & Brinkerhoff, 2011;Steyer & Gilbert, 2013), and the perception of governmental innovation (Forrer et al, 2010;Link & Link, 2009). These represent financial-and perception-based benefits that aim to cut short-and long-term costs through the collaboration with private business partners and through the use of entrepreneurial financing strategies.…”