A toxic mix? Comparative efficiency and the privatization of sanitation services in India
| Author | Jonathan Murphy |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1002/pad.564 |
| Published date | 01 May 2010 |
| Date | 01 May 2010 |
A TOXIC MIX? COMPARATIVE EFFICIENCY AND THE PRIVATIZATION
OF SANITATION SERVICES IN INDIA
JONATHAN MURPHY*
,y
Cardiff University, UK
SUMMARY
This article explores why the World Bank and its Indian government partners, in their efforts to reform the urban water and
sanitation sector in India, have failed to recognize and address the intolerable working conditions of Dalit (outcaste) sanitation
workers. The conceptual framework for the article is provided by the theory of thought-styles, developed by Ludwig Fleck and
refined by Mary Douglas, and its application to neoliberal public policy by the North American legal scholar Sharon Dolovich,
who observed the domination of the principle of ‘comparative efficiency’ in US prison policy debates. This approach is applied
to understanding how the worsening conditions of already highly vulnerable Dalit sewage workers have been displaced from the
sanitation policy debate. Copyright #2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
key words — privatization; sanitation services; India; World Bank; thought style
INTRODUCTION
The call for papers for this 60th anniversary issue of Public Administration and Development challenges scholars to
examine ‘what future for development management’. Specific areas for exploration include the limitations of
development management in addressing global problems including poverty and inequality. In this article, I examine
the inability of a highly professionalized development management organization to address severe discrimination
within its strategy for public sector reform. The article uses an innovative analytical framework— Fleck’s ‘thought
styles’— to explore and explain how institutionalized approaches in the development management field can
obstruct consideration of broader issues of human dignity and justice that (should) underpin the practice of
development management.
The case study involves the World Bank, perhaps the archetypal development management organization, and
its strategy for reform of India’s water and sanitation sector. The Bank’s reform proposals involve rolling-out
a standard neoliberal prescription of marketization and privatization. However, the Bank appears unable to
acknowledge or address a glaring problem in sanitation services in urban India; the appalling working conditions of
Dalit (outcaste) sanitation workers. The plight of these workers, sent down sewers that are veritable death traps, is
regularly aired publicly, due to the campaigns of Dalit human rights organizations and the workers’ unions.
Nevertheless the Bank, although armed with a primary mandate to eliminate poverty (its corporate slogan is
‘working for a world free of poverty’), ignores the issue in its detailed water and sani tation sector strategies.
Development management organizations such as the Bank emphasize the rational and scientific nature of their
approach, which they commend to client states around the world. When they systematically ignore a major social
problem such as the persistence of feudalist discrimination within an economic sector targeted for reform, this
absence demands scholarly attention. What processes could be going on that prevent the Bank from assuming its
public administration and development
Public Admin. Dev. 30, 124–135 (2010)
Published online 16 March 2010 in Wiley InterScience
(www.interscience.wiley.com) DOI: 10.1002/pad.564
*Correspondence to: J. Murphy, Cardiff Business School, Aberconway Building, Colum Drive, Cardiff CF10 3EU, UK.
E-mail: murphyj3@cardiff.ac.uk
y
Lecturer in International Management.
Copyright #2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
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