Privatization Of State Assets Research Articles

Competing for space in Tbilisi: transforming residential courtyards to parking in an increasingly car-dependent city

ABSTRACT Urban transformation in the postsocialist Global East was heavily determined by the mass privatization of state assets and by a dramatic increase in car ownership. Tbilisi, Georgia, has experienced these significant changes. The upsurge in private vehicle ownership was brought about by failing public transit, ineffective planning, suspended vehicle quality control and greater individualism. The problem has been exacerbated on two fronts in Tbilisi: new buildings built since the 1990s are now consuming former open spaces, while more people seek parking for their cars in the few crowded remaining areas leading to competition for parking space. Households of residential buildings are devising strategies for guarding nearby areas suitable for parking, while non-driving residents are at a loss to use these formerly open spaces for other purposes. Barriers are installed by the car-owning residents of apartment blocks to impose the primary function of parking to shared residential courtyards, an understudied communal space, turning them into part of the city’s automobility system. The article relies on data from in-depth interviews with city officials and residents of affected areas, policy documents and field observations from the districts of Tbilisi most affected by such change. It argues that the changes started with the privatization of urban space and followed by an increase in the dominance of the automobile in Tbilisi have led to the rapid modification and deterioration of collective areas of multistory apartment blocks and created factors that are transforming courtyards from leisure space into the part of Tbilisi’s automobility system.

Privatization of state assets and development of the proprietorship classin Uzbekistan

Privatization of state assets and development of the proprietorship classin Uzbekistan

'What Did Margaret Thatcher Do?': A Survey of the Thatcher Prime Ministership's Economic and Social Policies

'What Did Margaret Thatcher Do'?: A Survey of the Thatcher Prime Ministership's Economic and Social Policies endeavors to offer a systematic, grounded and properly contextualized, but still concise, summation of the British Prime Minister's conduct in the area of domestic economic and social life. In particular it focuses on the principles and program laid out in the Conservative Party's 1979 General Election Manifesto, and then details the Conservative government's policies when in office, concentrating on the areas of monetary and fiscal policy (including central banking and revision of the tax structure); the privatization of state assets and services (extending to the outsourcing of welfare functions, and the mandating of privatization at local government level); organized labor; the welfare state; and action regarding the manufacturing and financial sectors. The paper also considers some of the larger implications of this line of policy, not least the changes in the structure of the British economy (from the positions of manufacturing and finance, to the distribution of incokme), and the ways in which Thatcher's successors modified but also significantly forwarded this legacy.

Основные факторы эффективности приватизации государственных активов

Успешная приватизация государственной собственности зависит от инвестиционной привлекательности реализуемых объектов, а также общего инвестиционного климата страны и уровня развития финансовой инфраструктуры. В Республике Узбекистан с принятием Указа Президента страны от 27.10.2020г. № УП-6096 «О мерах по ускоренному реформированию предприятий с участием государства и приватизации государственных активов», начался новый этап приватизации государственной собственности. Значительное место в программе приватизации уделено реструктуризации государственной собственности, повышению эффективности управления государственными активами и выводу акций узбекских эмитентов на мировые рынки капитала (IPO). В статье рассматривается степень влияния эффективной системы корпоративного управления и уровня капитализации национального рынка ценных бумаг, способствующих повышению инвестиционной привлекательности и наиболее эффективному практическому проявлению родовых преимуществ акционерного общества, обеспечивающих достижение главной цели акционирования – привлечение прямых инвестиций

Основные факторы эффективности приватизации государственных активов

Successful privatization of state property due to the investment attractiveness of the objects being implemented, as well as the general investment climate of the country and the level of development of the financial infrastructure. According to President’s Degree adopted 10.27.2020. № UP-6096 On measures to accelerate the reform of enterprises with the participation of the state and the privatization of state assets, a new stage of privatization of state property began. A significant place in the privatization program is given to the restructuring of state property, improving the efficiency of managing state assets and bringing shares of Uzbek issuers to the world capital markets (IPO). The article examines the degree of influence of an effective corporate governance system and the level of capitalization of the national securities market, contributing to an increase in investment attractiveness and the most effective practical manifestation of the generic advantages of a joint-stock company, ensuring the achievement of the main goal of corporatization - attracting direct investment

Successful privatization of state property: factors and their impact on efficiency

Successful privatization of state property depends on the investment attractiveness of the objects being sold, as well as the general investment climate of the country and the level of development of the financial infrastructure. In the Republic of Uzbekistan, with the adoption of the Decree of the President of Uzbekistan dated October 27, 2020. № UP- 6096 “On measures to accelerate the reform of enterprises with the participation of the state and the privatization of state assets”, a new stage of privatization of state property began. A significant place in the privatization program is given to the restructuring of state property, improving the efficiency of managing state assets and bringing shares of Uzbek issuers to the world capital markets (IPO). The article examines the degree of influence of an effective corporate governance system and the level of capitalization of the national securities market, contributing to an increase in investment attractiveness and the most effective practical manifestation of the generic advantages of a joint-stock company, ensuring the achievement of the main goal of corporatization - attracting direct investment.

Corporations, Sovereignty and the Religion of Neoliberalism

This article seeks to contribute to the thinking of forms of corporateness, sociality and authority in the context of, but also beyond, neoliberalism, the neoliberal state and neoliberal accounts of the corporation. It considers neoliberalism in relation to the theological genealogies of modernity, politics and economy, and the way in which neoliberalism itself functions as a secular religion—one which intensifies liberal individualism and involves a blind faith in the market redefining all social interactions in terms of contract. I turn to the theological genealogies of sovereignty and economy, and of the corporation, as a way of grounding a radical consideration of collectivity and sociality. For, while the rise of neoliberalism is associated with the growth of multi-national or trans-national corporations, the privatisation of state assets and the corporatisation of public institutions, each of these involve not a diminishing of the state or the project of state sovereignty but rather its reformulation, reaffirmation and intensification. The corporation, despite being redefined as the interaction of fundamentally self-willing and contracting individuals operating in the market, is still fundamentally intertwined with state sovereignty. Attempts to address or respond to corporate power need to go beyond calls for greater regulation of corporations, increased corporate social responsibility or even the desire to eliminate corporate personhood. Rather, what is required is a greater emphasis on the notion of corporateness that undergirds the theological genealogy of the corporation—for if neoliberalism functions as a religion then part of the solution may be a theological one.

Capturing Contested States

This article argues that external state contestation and internal ethnic divisions have resulted in a high degree of state capture in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Macedonia and Montenegro, thus providing structural mechanisms for the reproduction of power of political elites. The article focuses on two dominant forms of state capture – party membership in public administration and the privatization process. First, by examining the extent to which party membership influences the composition of public administration, the article explains the solidification of the link between electoral preferences and job security. Second, by looking at the privatisation of state assets, the article shows how state capture facilitated the elites’ accumulation of private wealth. The latter developed into subsidiary networks for financing political parties, offering resources for corruption, clientelism and patronage that are key to the reproduction of political power in captured states. The article concludes by exploring the implications of the link between state contestation and state capture in the Western Balkan states.

Commodification and ‘the commons’: The politics of privatising public water in Greece and Portugal during the Eurozone crisis

In response to the Eurozone crisis, austerity and restructuring has been imposed on the European Union’s peripheral member states in order to receive financial bailout loans. In addition to cuts in funding for essential public services, cuts in public sector employment and the further liberalisation of labour markets, this has also included pressure towards the privatisation of state assets. Yet, workers have not simply accepted these restructuring pressures; rather, they have organised and fought back against austerity and enforced privatisation. Based on a historical-materialist perspective and following a strategy of incorporated comparison, in this article, we will comparatively assess the struggles against enforced water privatisation in Greece and Portugal set against the background of the structuring conditions surrounding the Eurozone crisis.

Compound growth and land: what are the implications for planning?

IntroductionThe significant property price rises seen in the UK since the mid-1990s are part of a wider global trend, and whilst the issue is frequently presented as one of house price rises the explanation for the phenomenon lies largely in increasing land values. Land values are rising across both urban and rural land in many parts of the world. In a recent study, Knoll et al. (2014) examined house price rises in fourteen advanced economies since 1870. They found that real house prices stayed constant from the nineteenth to the mid-twentieth century, but rose distinctly during the second half of the twentieth century, and particularly since the 1980s. Their analysis suggests that rising land values explain around 80 per cent of the house price rises which were witnessed in those countries during this period, in contrast to other possible explanatory factors, such as materials and labour costs. Rural land has also seen significant rises. For example, the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) reported in August 2016 that between 2004 and 2015 pasture land prices in England and Wales tripled (AHDB, 2016). The concern of this Viewpoint is with the potential implications of this trend for planners in the immediate context, and also for the planning profession as a whole into the future.Speculating about speculationIn his recent contributions to the intellectual discourse, David Harvey has suggested why these significant land value rises may be occurring. In considering the growth of the world economy since industrialisation, Harvey notes that a number of economic historians, whilst not aligning precisely on their estimations of the figures for size and growth rate, do indicate that the global economy has shown signs of having historically grown at a compound rate (Maddison 2007 quoted in Harvey 2014). In contrast to a linear rate of growth, under the conditions of compound growth the overall size of economic output initially increases at insignificant increments, but at a certain point rises more rapidly, from which it then rises at an increasing rate. It is suggested by Harvey (2014) that the 1970s was a key inflection point, at which growth began particularly to accelerate.From his characteristic position interpreting Marx's writings, Harvey suggests that within a system of capitalism there is a continual requirement for reinvestment opportunities (in Marxian terms, the 'absorption of capital surplus'). Without these opportunities a capitalist system cannot function. In order to make a reasonable return on these investments the owners of capital require the overall economy to be growing. Harvey suggests that the commonly accepted rate at which an economy is required to grow in order for most capitalists to make a reasonable profit on their investments is around 3 per cent (the target rate for economic growth endorsed by the financial press). A key implication is that, under the conditions of compound growth, the requirement for surplus absorption also reflects this growth rate. Therefore, since the 1970s, at the level of the world economy there has been a continuingly increasing requirement for capital investment opportunities in order for capitalists to make a suitable profit and for the overall system to be maintained. The implications of this are spelt out by Harvey:To keep a satisfactory growth rate right now would mean finding profitable investment opportunities for an extra nearly $2 trillion compared to the 'mere' $6 billion that was needed in 1970. By the time 2030 rolls around, when estimates suggest the global economy could be more than $96 trillion, profitable investment opportunities of close to $3 trillion will be needed. Thereafter the numbers become astronomical. (2014, 228)The accelerating requirement for investment opportunities since the 1970s has been supported by the various neoliberal state projects the world over. Indeed, Harvey argues that the privatisation of state assets and 'enclosure' of a range of formerly common goods (such as water and other utilities) have played a significant role in opening up opportunities for the absorption of capital surplus. …

Focus: Austerity and Resistance — Labour in the Eurozone crisis

health and education systems that are being rescued . It is the banks, who had organised the lending of super profits to peripheral countries, which had been exposed to private and national debt in these countries. Especially German and French banks were heavily exposed to Greek debt, British banks to Irish debt (Rogers 2011), with much of this exposure having now been socialised through bond purchases by the European Central Bank (ECB). The bailout packages came at a high price, making support dependent on austerity policies including: (1) cuts in funding of essential public services; (2) cuts in public sector employment; (3) push towards privatisation of state assets; and (4) undermining of industrial relations and trade union rights through enforced cuts in minimum wages and a further liberalisation of labour markets. Hence, imposed austerity went also beyond direct cuts. Greece ‘has been forced to introduce new legislation in labour markets and to engage in ambitious privatisation’ (Lapavitsas 2012: 120). Labour market deregulation and making wage-setting ‘more efficient’ are clearly directed against trade unions’ involvement in social and economic decision-making at the national level. As part of the bailout package for Portugal, the government agreed to stop extending collective agreements automatically to the whole industrial sector in 2011. Unsurprisingly collective bargaining coverage has fallen drastically. ‘In 2010 a total of 116 industry level agreements ... were extended by government to cover all employees in the industry concerned. However, in 2011 this fell to 17 and in 2012 to 12’ (ETUI 2013). Hence, while in 2010, 1,309,300 employees were covered by collective industry level agreements, in 2012 it was only 291,100 employees. There have also been amendments to the Labour Code with the aim of creating greater flexibility for firms, thereby allegedly enhancing competitiveness and wage moderation. These changes have included reduced ‘pay for overtime by 50 percent’; further flexibilisation of fixed-term contracts by extending the ‘probationary ’ period from six months to a maximum of three years; and the relaxing of rules for redundancy and dismissal, especially for reasons revolving around economic circumstances (Clauwaert and Schomann 2012: 9, 11-2). Whilst some reversals on this front have been achieved, through legislation having been deemed unconstitutional, officials from the ECB, European Commission, and International Monetary Fund (IMF) (collectively now popularly known as the The real conflict here is between workers and big business, which takes place across the EU INTERNATIONAL union rights Page 4 Volume 22 Issue 2 2015 I t is often argued in the media that citizens of richer countries would now have to pay for the ‘profligacy’ of citizens from indebted countries. Cultural arguments of apparently ‘lazy Greek’ workers as the cause of the crisis are put forward despite the fact that Greek workers are amongst those who work the most hours in Europe (McDonald 2012). Rather than the result of Greeks living above their means, however, the crisis is a reflection of the highly uneven European political economy. While Germany and other countries of the European core have pursued a growth strategy based on exports, countries in the European periphery including Greece followed a strategy of demand-led growth often financed with loans from abroad. Nevertheless, it would be wrong simply to blame the Greeks for this situation. The super profits resulting from German export success needed new points of investment to generate more profits and state bonds of peripheral countries seemed to be the ideal investment opportunity with guaranteed profits, backed by sovereign states. The introduction of the Euro and the related low interest rates in peripheral countries, thus, facilitated this financialisation of the European political economy in favour of transnational capital . In a way, Germany has recycled its profits in the form of lending to peripheral countries. In turn, these credits to the periphery were used to purchase more goods in the core ensuring a continuation of the German export success. Hence, the recurrent distinction between credit- and export-led economies is misleading. Firms in core countries would not have been able to pursue export-led growth strategies, if global aggregate demand had not been supported by the real estate and stock market bubbles that occurred in the periphery as a result of...

Privatisation: The New Zealand Experiment of the 1980’s: How Did Mom and Pop Fare?

Many would judge the privatisation program which was a significant feature of the New Zealand Experiment of the 1980’s and 90’s, in which both Labour and National governments adopted extreme right wing policies, a failure. In looking at the privatisation of state assets we find they were, at least from an investors’ perspective reasonably successful. Returns to investors who held a portfolio of privatised assets outperformed the NZ share market as a whole. An investment strategy of buying each privatisation, on the market on day one, would have yielded a return of 12.71%, while a similar investment in the entire NZ market would have returned only 7.01%. Also there can be little doubt; the nine privatisations in this sample have had a considerable impact on the NZ stock market, following the listing of Telecom in 1991 total privatised assets comprising 49% of the NZ total market and for twenty years the capitalisation of the privatisation sample has averaged 37% of the NZ total market. Analysis of government papers of the day reveals the government’s overall objective was increased efficiency, flowing from a fundamental belief that government couldn’t and shouldn’t run commercial businesses. In this they were successful, but at what cost?

Was privatisation necessary and did it work? The case of South Africa

‘Why structural adjustment is necessary and why it doesn't work’ published by Gavin Williams in ROAPE in 1994, highlighted the paradoxical nature of structural adjustment policies. Drawing on Williams's insights, this article examines the adoption and outcome of privatisation policies in South Africa from 1994 to 2010. The paper makes two claims that reinforce Williams's earlier arguments. First, privatisation was central to the effort by the post-apartheid government to secure a marriage between the state and capital through the expansion of black ownership. Yet, second, concerns over employment equity, preferential procurement, and unemployment forced the state to depend on parastatals after the turn of the century and in doing so, to abandon the privatisation of state assets. State-owned enterprises have now become an integral component of the state's developmental project in South Africa. [Est-ce que la privatisation était nécessaire et a-elle fonctionné ? Le cas de l'Afrique du Sud]. « Pourquoi l'adaptation structurelle est-elle nécessaire et pourquoi cela ne fonctionne pass », publié par Gavin Williams dans ROAPE en 1994, souligna le caractère paradoxal des politiques d'ajustement structurel. S'appuyant sur les idées de Williams, cet article analyse l'adoption et les résultats des politiques de privatisation en Afrique du sud de 1994 à 2010. Le document émet deux demandes qui renforcent les arguments antérieurs de Williams. Tout d'abord, la privatisation était au centre de l'effort consenti par le gouvernement postapartheid afin de garantir un lien entre l'État et le capital grâce à l'extension de la propriété noire. Cependant, en second lieu, les préoccupations concernant l'équité sur l'emploi, les marchés préférentiels et le chômage obligèrent l'État à dépendre des sociétés paraétatiques à la fin du siècle et, ce faisant, de renoncer à la privatisation des actifs de l'État. Les entreprises d'État sont à présent devenues une partie intégrante du projet de développement de l'État en Afrique du Sud. Mots-clés : le néolibéralisme ; la privatisation ; l'état de développement ; l'Afrique du Sud

Poland’s New Capitalism, by Jane Hardy

Jane Hardy Poland's New Capitalism, Pluto Press: London, 2009, 258 pp: 9780745324579, 60 [pounds sterling] (hbk); 9780745324562 17.09 [pounds sterling] (pbk) In a crisis-stricken world, the mainstream media continues to set Poland up as an example of a successful transformation and a model of prosperous neoliberal development. But 'the only economy in the EU not to plunge into recession' and 'the future economic powerhouse of Europe' are not the images that Jane Hardy draws in her book. Poland's New Capitalism successfully calls into question a number of popular myths that have been perpetrated about Poland since the EU enlargement, and arguably since the collapse of communism. Hardy looks at a putative 'tiger economy' of Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) from a different angle, and through her extensive interviews with activists, managers, workers and others, she manages to capture the sense of disillusionment, exclusion and indifference felt by many Poles, who live alongside the prosperous and well-established elite. The first two chapters provide the reader with the historical context necessary to grasp Poland's new capitalism and its integration into the global political economy. Hardy begins with a short account of the postwar history of Poland. She manages to briefly present the installation of the crisis-prone Soviet-style economy and investigates a series of crises and major rebellions that fostered a process of gradual and unsuccessful reforms, which only pushed the country towards a prolonged stagnation and greater integration with global capitalism. In her examination of the final years of market socialism, Hardy discusses the roots and origins of opposition and devotes special attention to the rise of Solidarity. The main focus here is given to economic and labour-related issues, but the author's analysis oversees both historic and cultural aspects regarding the issue of resistance. Hardy divorces Solidarity from a struggle for national liberation and sees it as mainly a social-democratic trade union that by the late-1980s, due to martial law and repression, 'came to be represented by a small number of individuals ... who were proponents of the free market' (p. 28). Depicting the workers' rebellions as mainly a response to ever-decreasing working conditions and falling standards of living, and ignoring the patriotic dimension of the movement, is, however, somewhat misleading. It ignores the fact that apart from defending workers' rights, Solidarity was also fuelled by very deeply rooted anti-Soviet, pro-Catholic, and national-liberation sentiments. This aspect can by no means be ignored, for many Solidarity activists regarded their actions as a continuation of the fight for independence, and viewed socialism as an unwanted system imposed by the Soviet occupiers. This, in turn, goes towards an explanation of why the post-communist Solidarity-led governments, along with many governments across CEE, willingly turned to market-oriented policies and remained hostile to anything remotely socialist. In the next chapter, the book scrutinises the rapid liberalisation of trade and the disintegration of the state-planned economy, and contrasts the neoliberal and institutionalist accounts of the transformation with historical-materialist arguments that draw from Antonio Gramsci. In regard to the latter, Hardy offers an interesting theoretical analysis. The use of uneven and combined development accurately captures the overnight introduction of neoliberal policies, which she rightly views as a 'leap' rather than a gradual process, while her notion of creative destruction also encapsulates the nature of mass privatisation of state assets and the collapse of the state-directed economy. In her analysis of the new ruling class, Hardy accurately notices that it was 'the cliques of the old nomenklatura and Solidarity', accompanied by foreign capital, that really emerged victorious in the new reality, while the Solidarity-mobilised masses were frequently marginalised, facing unemployment and poverty (pp. …

Deliberative global governance and the question of legitimacy: what can we learn from the WTO?

AbstractThe integration of the global economy through the liberalisation of the trade regime, the deregulation of financial markets and the privatisation of state assets has led to what we now commonly call ‘globalisation’. These processes, however, have not been accompanied by a comparable development of the global polity. At the same time, it is increasingly recognised in policy circles that without the development of norms, institutions and processes to manage globalisation many of the advantages it has brought the world could be undone by a failure to mitigate the excesses and negative consequences that emanate from it, especially for large sections of the world's poor. This article addresses two broad questions: what might we understand by global governance in an era of increasingly contested globalisation and what role might international organisations play in making it more (democratically) legitimate? It addresses these questions in three steps. First, it proposes a heuristic definition that identifies two key strands of ‘governance’ in the contemporary debate. It is argued that global governance understood as effective and efficient collective decision-making and problem solving is insufficient for normative reasons and must, in addition, be complemented by global governance understood as the democratic legitimation of policy-making. In a second step, as an example of this latter type of governance, the article develops a deliberative two-track view of transnational legitimacy. It argues that deliberative democracy offers some fruitful theoretical tools in this context since it is equipped to address some of the qualitative problems of international decision-making as well as accommodate a plausible notion of political agency. Thirdly, from the point of view of this two-track view, the article examines the WTO and discusses its strengths and vulnerabilities, not only as a vehicle for trade liberalisation but also as an instrument of better global governance.

Resource Nationalism - Limits to Foreign Direct Investment

Despite a global trend toward the privatization of state assets, host governments are consolidating ownership over strategically important domestic oil and gas resources, effectively limiting corporate foreign direct investment. These findings are supported by an analysis of global reserve acquisitions for the period 2000-2006, a period which saw listed national oil companies (NOCs) acquire over 82% of their reserves domestically, compared to only 25% for commercial operators. We also perform a regression analysis and find that political risk and reserve size are strongly related to state ownership retention, while the degree of state control is positively related to OPEC membership. Foreign direct investment is shown to be increasingly constrained to assets in low-risk developed countries or marginal oilfield assets.

Beyond Apartheid: Race, Transformation and Governance in KwaZulu-Natal Cricket

Beyond Apartheid:race, transformation and governance in KwaZulu-Natal cricket1 Goolam Vahed (bio), Vishnu Padayachee (bio), and Ashwin Desai (bio) Introduction In February 1990 South African President FW de Klerk unbanned the African National Congress (ANC), the South African Communist Party (SACP) and the Pan African Congress (PAC), allowing these organisations to return to 'normal' and active politics within the country after an absence of almost three decades. Nelson Mandela and FW de Klerk were the leading figures in the protracted and complicated negotiations of the early 1990s. South Africa's first non-racial government was elected when the ANC won a landslide victory in April 1994. Perhaps not unexpectedly, given the balance of power between the apartheid state and the liberation movement, much was conceded during negotiations. Those who had pinned their hopes on a state-led, and interventionist economic recovery programme to address the inequities in power and wealth were to be disappointed. For by the end of the Cold War, a neo-liberal approach to economic management (also referred to as the Washington Consensus), with an emphasis on labour, trade and financial market liberalisation and the privatisation of state assets, was dominant. Programmes of re-distribution and redress in many sectors of South African society were placed on the back burner, as the new government attempted to demonstrate its commitment to this new global agenda. Despite the formation of non-racial sporting bodies in many codes at both national and provincial levels, sport (including cricket) in early post-apartheid South Africa appears to have displayed continuity rather than disjuncture with its racist past and this segment of society remained firmly in the grip of the old-white elite, for whom it was 'business as usual', but with the crucial added bonus of international respectability. [End Page 63] The ANC appreciated that symbols, songs and icons distinguish nations from each other, that sporting victories create positive images of national strength, and provide 'shared memories' and ideas of 'common destiny', and appropriated sport as part of its nationalising programme (Booth 1998: 210). This paper explores a variety of issues arising out of these changes in the province of KwaZulu-Natal. Who are the beneficiaries of change? Is transformation in cricket just racial tokenism? Are there new tensions among blacks - Africans, Indians and coloureds - over the transformation agenda? Are issues of corporate governance, in what is clearly a major industry, creating new difficulties? Among other issues it looks at the historic construction of boundaries between Indians, whites and Africans in the struggle for control of cricket in this province in the first decade of freedom. The paper is less a narrative about cricket than it is about the making and persistence of race and ethnic classifications, the struggles over resources, and the attempts to mould disparate racial, economic, political, and ideological interests into a common nationhood. While Africans make up the majority population in KwaZulu-Natal, Indians and whites together constitute over ninety-five per cent of cricket players and administrators in the province, both historically and in the contemporary period. Cricket has always been popular among coloureds, but their numbers in the province are negligible (Desai et al 2002: chapter 4). Unlike the Cape and the Transvaal, historical circumstances resulted in cricket failing to take root among Africans in Natal. Cricket was first introduced to Africans in Durban when the local state appointed JT Rawlins as its 'Native Welfare Officer' in April 1930. His mandate was to gainfully occupy the leisure time of the burgeoning African urban population so as to take their minds away from political 'agitation'. Cricket was part of a larger project by the local state to change African leisure-time activities, with the collaboration of capital, white liberals and African middle classes. The local state sponsored African participation in national tournaments for almost three decades. However, cricket was confined to African elites in Christian missions and schools, where it was part of a wider transmission of European norms and values, as well as among clerical workers in Durban and Pietermaritzburg. Soccer and leisure activities like dance halls and music, which required less investment of finance and time, were more practical for a migrant population...

The Evolution of Health and Welfare Policies in South Africa: Inherited Institutions, Fiscal Restraint, and the Deracialization of Social Policy in the Post-Apartheid Era

Institutions which have died as creeds sometimes continue, nevertheless, to survive as habits. --Richard H. Tawney, 1931 (1) The central question in this essay is: Why is social policy reform program of post-apartheid African National Congress (ANC) government failing to achieve its egalitarian objectives? Many commentators locate answer in embrace of economic and social policies by ANC ruling party and abandonment of its historical commitments to redistribution of wealth of as contained in documents such as 1955 Freedom Charter, which called for sharing of the national wealth of country among all South Africans. (2) By neoliberalism, I refer to those economic strategies and political objectives that privilege market over state, and call for (1) diminishing of economic influence of state through privatization of state assets, (2) state becoming a non-intervening regulator of economic relations between capital and labor, (3) reduction in social support for poor and unemployed received through social security and other non-market mechanisms in favor of labor market based strategies such as works programs, and (4) erosion of concept of public good through an increased emphasis in social and economic policy on individual responsibility for social goods, such as health and education. The Growth, Employment and Re-distribution Strategy (GEAR), introduced by government led by ANC in 1996, had two main objectives. The first was to maintain internal fiscal restraint to eliminate rapidly government deficit while, simultaneously, reprioritizing existing national budget to meet social needs. Second, it aimed to implement economic reforms, such as lifting exchange controls, restructuring state assets, and developing a flexible labor market to facilitate a globally competitive, export-led growth path that would enable economy to expand by 6 percent and create 400,000 jobs annually. (3) All these features of GEAR may reflect neoliberal underpinnings to ANC government's development approach. It is problematic to suggest, however, that there was a singularly correct strategy to transform inegalitarian nature of South African society, which ANC had abandoned. I argue that transforming South African society is a more complex exercise than anticipated. It is conditioned by historical, institutional, and related fiscal arrangements inherited from apartheid era, which have constrained, if not radically limited, ability to transform post-apartheid landscape. To explain limitations imposed by various inherited institutions in access to and use of health and welfare services in first post-apartheid government in South Africa, I use concept dualism. These inherited institutions limit realization of social equity, whatever particular strategy of transformation. A more interesting line of inquiry is to consider manner in which South African state, before and since end of apartheid, has responded to these institutional limitations. In this essay I will review these institutional arrangements and their historical roots as they pertain to reform of various aspects of health and welfare policies, and will attempt to demonstrate manner in which current social policy problems in South Africa are neither new to post-apartheid era nor mere consequences of this political change. The essay will also examine shifts in post-apartheid fiscal arrangements, which aimed to decentralize health service delivery in context of a new system of provincial governments, which was institutionalized after democratic elections in 1994. These changes have had unintended consequence of creating a fiscal and administrative re-fragmentation of post-apartheid nation-state in a manner similar in surprising respects to specific and intentional racial fragmentation found under apartheid. …

African Securities Market Designs

African securities markets present international investors with unique opportunities for diversification and risk return profiles consistent with emerging markets. This research examines African market structures and performance. As Africa's financial infrastructure continues to evolve the continued development of securities markets is critical in the privatization of state assets. This paper provides selective descriptions of African securities markets' regulations and procedures. The paper's objective is to provide an institutional framework for studying Africa's securities markets. The continent's trading systems represent many different trading arrangements and the rules and procedures are not standardized.

Social Capital and Development: The Coming Agenda

SAIS Review 22.1 (2002) 23-37 [Access article in PDF] Social Capital and Development: The Coming Agenda Francis Fukuyama This article addresses the concept of social capital: in particular, where social capital stands today, how it interacts with other factors in international development, and how it will contribute to economic growth and poverty alleviation in the future. The term "social capital" reentered the social science lexicon in the 1980s. According to sociologist James Coleman, social capital refers to people's ability to work together in groups. I prefer to define the concept more broadly to include any instance in which people cooperate for common ends on the basis of shared informal norms and values. Furthermore, many now regard social capital as a key ingredient in both economic development and stable liberal democracy. Over the past decade, most research on social capital and its relationship with economic development has been conceptual, focusing on its definition, where it comes from, and how it functions. Future research, however, should move away from historical cases to a more pragmatic agenda, examining issues such as where social capital has successfully been created; the legal and institutional conditions that underpin its growth; its correlation to political corruption; and the impact of cultural changes (such as religious conversions) on social capital. First, we need to understand how social capital fits into the broader development agenda. [End Page 23] Rethinking of Development A major rethinking of the problem of development took place during the latter part of the 1990s, including a new appreciation for the importance of incorporating cultural factors into economic growth and development models. Social capital, after all, is simply a means of understanding the role that values and norms play in economic life. The 1990s began, in a sense, with the so-called "Washington consensus" as the dominant approach to the discourse on developing and transitional economies. Applied primarily by international financial institutions, the Washington consensus was a series of economic policies that sought to free developing and transitional economies from the dead hand of the state. These were applied with varying degrees of success to countries in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, Latin America, Asia, South Asia, and elsewhere in the developing world. In many cases these policies failed to produce sustained economic growth, prompting a backlash against what is derisively called "neoliberalism." Nowhere is this more apparent than in Latin America. The charge that the Washington consensus has been an across-the-board failure is nevertheless inaccurate; there were, in fact, some key successes in countries like Poland, Estonia, Mexico, and, before the Washington consensus was formulated, Chile. The failure of the Washington consensus was one of omission, rather than of policy. Privatization of inefficient nationalized assets, reduction of trade and investment barriers, phasing out of subsidies that distort market prices, industry deregulation, and market integration into the global economy are all unexceptionable policies that, in the long run, are necessary for economic growth. Any rethinking of the development problem should not reject these policies as long-run objectives. The problem with the Washington consensus was not that it was misdirected, but rather that it was incomplete. One of the ways in which it was incomplete was its failure to take account of social capital. The ability to implement liberalizing policies presumed the existence of a competent, strong, and effective state, a series of institutions within which policy change could occur, and the proper cultural predispositions on the part of economic and political actors. Nevertheless, the Washington consensus was implemented as a blueprint for development in many countries lacking the proper political, institutional, and cultural preconditions [End Page 24] to make liberalization effective. Eliminating capital controls, for example, can lead to serious financial instability if implemented, as in the case of Thailand and Korea, in countries without adequate regulation of the banking sector. Similarly, privatization of state assets can delegitimize the entire reform process if carried out by state agencies that are corrupt and prone to cronyism. What we have learned over the past decade, then, is not that liberalization does not work, but that economic policy...