The Politics of Privatisation: Redrawing the Public–Private Boundary

Abstract

Privatisation in Greece represented a reversal of the entire post-war and post-authoritarian interventionist policy paradigm. The privatisation decision resulted from pressures associated with the EC/EU and globalisation in general. The Simitis governments reactivated a privatisation programme comparable to that of ND in the early 1990s, but distinctly pragmatic in its reasoning, gradualist in its pace, and nonconflictual though unilateralist in its policy implementation. A central feature of the 'Simitis privatisations' was the flotation of successive minority stakes in public enterprises leading to retention of public control even though the government kept only a minority stake in the privatised enterprises. Privatisation was most far-reaching in the banking sector, with important broader implications for the entire economy. Despite the remarkably more favourable overall conditions under which the Simitis governments implemented privatisation as compared to the ND government in the early 1990s, privatisation policies continued to provide ad hoc opportunities for considerable sociopolitical opposition.

The Impact of the Fiscal Crisis on Greek and Portuguese Welfare States: Retrenchment before the Catch‐up?

“…Nonetheless, until the Greek dictatorship (1967–74), Greece's economic model was based on monetary and fiscal stability (Pagoulatos ). After 1974, however, monetary and fiscal stability were largely ignored by the post‐dictatorship governments (Pagoulatos ). Hence, from 17.6 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP) in 1970, public debt increased to 28.3 per cent in 1981 and reached the level of 112 per cent in 1986 (Ioakimides : 77).…”

“…After the early 1990s, both PASOK and New Democracy (ND) governments implemented a number of privatizations and labour market reforms in order to achieve EMU entry by the late 1990s (cf. Pagoulatos : 360), which trade unions opposed (cf. Featherstone ).…”

Mixed-methods analysis of political parties׳ manifesto discourse on rail transport policy: Westminster, Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish elections 1945–2011

“…This has largely focused on: state grants and subsidies as an electoral issue (Else, 1996); the electoral dimension to rail regulation (McLean and Foster, 1992); the influence of state-trades union relations on voting patterns (Howell, 1999); parties' programmes on competition and regulation (Charlton et al, 1997); electoral debate on nationalisation (Pagoulatos, 2005); policy actors' attitudes to aspects of rail policy (Ludvigsen et al, 2013); the electoral salience of rail policy and environmentalism (Carter, 1992); party pledges on rail modernisation (Liow, 2005) and the electoral politics of rail closures (Loft, 2006). Accordingly, in order to address the dearth of work exploring the origins of rail transport policy in electoral discourse the following draws upon the theory of 'issuesalience' (RePass, 1971;Robertson, 1976); a conceptualisation whereby key importance lies not only on party issue-positions but on the prominence and attention afforded to different issues in their campaigns; ergo the more an issue is emphasised by a party (making it 'salient'), the greater the likelihood it will attract voters who share similar concerns.…”

Social Values and the Creative Ethos in the Greek Knowledge Society: A Phenomenological Analysis

“…The establishment of the public enterprise sector in Greece happened gradually during the twentieth century through "successive waves of state consolidation" (Pagoulatos 2005). The first wave occurred after the end of World War II until the 1960s and the second wave occurred after 1974, with the re-instatement of democracy.…”

“…The PASOK governments tried to constrain the governmental expansion and control, especially in the context of EU pressures, by promoting some privatization programs. Yet these were "moderate" and "gradualist in their pace" (Pagoulatos 2005). For more than twenty years, in their attempts to modernize Greece, their focus was more on restructuring rather than privatizing the public sector, which was marked by increasing phenomena of clientelism and favoritism (Close June 2005).…”