From empire to commonwealth: Reflections on a career in britain's overseas service. John O'Regan. The Radcliffe Press, London/New York, 1994, 196 pp
| Date | 01 November 2006 |
| Published date | 01 November 2006 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1002/pad.4230150213 |
| Author | Raja Gomez |
Book
Reviews
187
having to cover the losses of privatised companies’. In any event, loss-making concerns cannot
normally be sold unless their balance sheets are first cleaned up at huge short-term cost to the
exchequer. The chapter then switches suddenly to a brief discussion of the three Cs model, which
just as suddenly terminates, and with it the chapter. The link to the previous section is
non-existent. A further failing of this chapter is that it does not bring out sufficiently the
difference between a privatisation programme of asset sales and a programme based on
competitive tendering.
The chapter on Indonesia that follows sets out to draw a distinction between the financial and
economic objectives underlying public enterprise reform and the political reasons for state
ownership. This distinction is unsatisfactory at best, as the author demonstrates by listing as
‘political’ Indonesia’s economic development strategy. The experience of Indonesia appears to
have been fairly typical
of
less-developed countries
so
far, and as the author notes, compara-
tively little has
so
far been achieved; we do not, therefore, learn much that is truly new. The
chapter is well written, which is a relief given that, elsewhere, the use of English is somewhat
idiosyncratic (for example, the use of words such as ‘budgeteconomization’ and ‘deterioted’ on
the first full page of text).
Chapter
4
on North and West Africa introduces
us
to the ‘parapublic’ sector. Somewhat
confusingly, it is stated on p.
55
that the time was not ripe in the eighties for large-scale
privatisations in the Third World, and almost immediately afterwards that it was ripe by the end
of 1987. The chapter consists of successive short sections on North Africa; sub-Saharan Africa;
Burkina Faso and Ghana. At roughly
3
pages apiece these are fairly sketchy. They are followed
by brief conclusions and, confusingly, general conclusions.
Chapter
5
provides a brief tour of privatisation experiences in Eastern Europe followed by a
case study involving Kazakhstan. The latter provides an element
of
originality, but the rest tells
us nothing new.
Privatisation is
a
major growth area for publications, but there is always room for texts that
provide new insights. The trouble with this text is that it isn’t really a text at all but rather bits and
pieces salvaged from a conference, cobbled together but lacking
a
clear rationale. At the very
least, the number of case studies should have been expanded considerably and the conceptual
material integrated better with the empirical. As it stands, it contains little that is essential for a
reader to know but which is unavailable elsewhere, but it might, depending on the price, just be
worthwhile adding to a library collection.
P.
J.
CURWEN
Shef3eld
Hallam
University
FROM EMPIRE
TO
COMMONWEALTH: REFLECTIONS ON A CAREER
IN
BRITAIN’S OVERSEAS SERVICE
John
O’Regan
The Radcliffe Press, Londonmew York, 1994,
196
pp.
O’Regan’s book is a contribution to a series being published by the Radcliffe Press that records
and comments on the colonial experiences of British officials in various fields.
The author studied Botany at Balliol and then found himself being offered an appointment in
the former Ceylon Civil Service. He spent much
of
his career in Ceylon, including the phase of
transition of the country from colony to independent nation, but also served in Jamaica and
Nigeria. Towards the end of his career he worked in British Missions in Uganda and Iran.
O’Regan has had opportunities to observe the processes
of
British Colonial Government at
very close quarters: although he began his career in Ceylon as a raw recruit, by the time he went to
Nigeria he was senior enough to serve as a Permanent Secretary. Opportunities for close
observation were obviously best in Ceylon where, within a short period, he became Private
Secretary to the Governor (he capped that experience by marrying the boss’s daughter at the end
of the assignment). This section of the book is rich in descriptions of
a
country he obviously
loved (and loves) and in vignettes of the public and private lives of colonial officers as well as
Ceylonese men-in-the-street. When one gets
to
the Jamaican and Nigerian chapters
of
the book
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