Privatization in developing countries edited by V. V. Ramanadham Routledge, London, 1989, xiii + 443 pp
| Date | 01 January 1991 |
| Author | C. Lawson |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1002/pad.4230110111 |
| Published date | 01 January 1991 |
PUBLIC
ADMINISTRATION AND DEVELOPMENT, Vol.
11,89-92
(1991)
Book
reviews
PRIVATIZATION IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES
Edited
by
V.
V.
Ramanadham
Routledge, London, 1989, xiii
+
443
pp.
The literature
on
privatization is now
so
large that any new book which aims to make a
significant impact must offer important new insights,
or
significant new data,
or
an excep-
tionally clear and useful synthesis of existing research. This book does not fully meet any
of
these criteria, and it is difficult to see it finding more than
a
peripheral place on reading
lists.
This is not entirely the editor’s fault. The papers are edited versions
of
those delivered
at a United Nations Development Programme sponsored conference in 1988. They fall into
four groups. The editor begins the volume with a substantial and balanced background paper
on
the privatization programme in the United Kingdom, which also examines the relevance
of that process for developing countries. The paper is clear and well organized. There then
follow four brief overview papers by consultants. These probably generated some interesting
conference discussions, but are too slight to warrant publication between hard covers.
The bulk of the book comprises twelve country
or
area case studies, most of which follow
a common three-section format: the public enterprise situation; the privatization phase; and
the strategies and problems of privatization. The countries covered include Pakistan, India,
Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Jordan, China, Kenya, Nigeria, Ghana and Peru. Some case studies
are extensive and informative; some are very thin. But because different countries’ experiences
with privatization have been
so
diverse, the individual papers needed to
be
tied into a stronger
integral framework to give them more coherence as a group. Perhaps relating them more
closely and consistently to United Kingdom experience might have provided a useful theme,
indeed that seems to have been the original intention. A final commentary paper from the
editor, which is mainly a series of accurate but rather disparate comments on the individual
case studies, only serves to highlight this lacuna.
C.
LAWSON
University
of
Bath
TRANSFORMING A BUREAUCRACY: THE EXPERIENCE
OF
THE PHILIPPINE
NATIONAL IRRIGATION ADMINISTRATION
Edited
by
Frances
F.
Korten and Robert
Y.
Siy,
Jr.
Ateneo de Manila University Press [for distribution in the Philippines, Indonesia, Singapore,
Thailand, Malaysia, Hongkong, Taiwan, and Japan.] The rest of the world by Kumarian
Press Inc., Manila, 1989. [Kumarian Press, 1988.1 xix plus 175 pp. [including Appendices
and Index].
The papers in this book review a remarkable case
of
bureaucratic transformation that is
well-known to specialists in international irrigation management. This was an effort by the
Philippines’ National Irrigation Agency (NIA) to find a more effective means of assisting
‘communal’ irrigation systems-those owned and managed by groups of farmers. Several
important innovations were introduced and institutionalized through the programme, includ-
ing the use of specially trained organizers
to
facilitate farmers’ participation in irrigation
system improvement, the use
of
the improvement process to build local organizational capacity,
and the strategy for inducing
a
technical bureaucracy to shift to a more people-oriented
development strategy. These innovations have since had considerable influence on other coun-
0
1991 by John Wiley
&
Sons, Ltd.
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