The Politics of Public-Private Partnerships Literature review

The Politics of Public-Private Partnerships - Literature review Example The validity of his argument regarding the associated costs of PPPs is the essential point presented in this paper. Flinders’ major argument The article â€Å"The Politics of Public-Private Partnerships† is a particular argument that presents PPPs as potential factors that provide the opportunity for political issues and tensions to proliferate in the government (Flinders, 2005). According to Flinders, political issues and tensions are largely been overlooked, which may be eventually observed from the point of view of efficiency, risk, complexity, accountability and governance and the future of state projects. Through PPP, efficiency gains and service improvements in some policy areas may be observed, but based on the thoughts of Flinders these also have corresponding political and democratic costs. In other words, PPPs may have provided significant benefits at some point, but on the other hand, these can only be generated with substantial political and democratic costs . For Flinders, short-term benefits linked to PPPs may be outweighed by the long-term problems. Therefore, it emphasises more of the probable threats or risks. Thus, Flinders adopted the definition of PPP as a risk-sharing relationship existing between the public and private sectors just to result to the desired public policy outcome. In order to explicate this point, Flinders was able to subdivide his arguments into various sections. The first section deals with the Labour government’s approach to public sector reform since May 1, 1997. In the second section, the author examines Public Interest Companies (PICs) prior to a more detailed analysis of the Private Finance Initiative (PFI) in the UK. The third section introduces the framework to elaborate the idea of the political issues and debates around PPPs. Then finally, the last section provides information concerning the reasons why the government may commit to PPPs. Central to the idea concerning the first section is the p revailing diverse models of service delivery that the public and private sectors implemented. This at some point, according to Flinders provided the opportunity to the birth of political administrative perspective. The second section tries to enhance the idea of ‘back-door privitisation’ which may have potentially evolved from PICs down to PFI. In this case, various political concerns surfaced and the issue was far from monetary consideration. The third section introduces some relevant themes surrounding PPPs in the UK. Based on the argument of Flinders, these themes may have substantially provide opportunity for the public sectors to be served, but the bottom line of these themes may provide implication for the advantage only of the few and not the majority. The fourth section is a significant confirmation of the elemental drawbacks linked to controversial PFI deals. However, the government seems to have no other choice, but to continuously rely on the private sectors in the future to provide public services resulting to partnerships with associated political challenges. It is now important to consider some remarkable insights regarding the stand of Flinders on PPPs. Key insights In this section, the work at hand presents the key insights into the relationship between government and business based on the relevant points from the article. One major insight that can be generated from the article includes the point that the government is

Annotated Bibliography on Human Rights Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

On Human Rights - Annotated Bibliography Example One of their cultural practices dictates the accumulation of large herds of cattle and cultivation of extensive agricultural lands with the former serving as a symbol for their wealth and power. The accumulation of vast lands and herds lead to the increase of their population density. Culturally, the Bantu-speaking farmers were described to use these amassed fields and horde of cattle for political and social transactions, including marriage issues related to the bride’s wealth compensation (termed as lobola) and â€Å"tribute demand purposes†. There was a group of Bantu-speakers who settled near water resources called as Sotho-Tswana. The other group of Bantu speakers who settled in coastal plains was known as Nguni. The third group of Bantu-speaking people, the Khoisans was another group known to settle on the west and southwest. Today, these three groups comprise majority of the settlers of South Africa. This article can purposely be used to study today’s comp osition and stratification of South Africa’s inhabitants which may help in drafting economic plans, policies and reforms or for whatever purpose it may serve.The article presents South Africa (SA)’s as a catalyst of the African continent. It is progressively an â€Å"emerging economy† in the making. Here, South Africa was presented to have achieved a world class economy, boasting of its abundant natural resources, established financial, communications, transportation. It has also boasted of a reliable and progressive legal framework system. In fact, it was also cited to be among one of the top 20 stock exchanges in the world. Finally, SA also boasts of its institutional vis-a-vis financial management reforms guaranteeing less risk to its foreign investors. Aside from posting a positive economic growth, the article also presents challenges or threats that may hamper SA’s economic growth if not properly addressed immediately through reforms. These deterrent factors include inadequate energy supply, IMF’s report about its long-standing issue on unemployment along with poverty, wide gap in wealth distribution and high incidence of HIV/ Aids. Since the best features about SA were featured in this article, it would best suit to get this positive information packaged into an investment portfolio for purposes of investment promotion in the near future. South Africa Human Rights, (2011). amnestyusa.org. Amnesty International US. Retrieved Feb. 06, 2011 from http://www.amnestyusa.org/all-countries/south-africa/page.do?id=1011238 The article presents an update on the South Africa’s committed violence against human rights. It presents records of different cases where human rights were violated. Killings, tortures, extrajudicial executions committed by officials in authority like policemen themselves, large scale forced evictions that ended up in violence between refugees and migrants, abuse of female minors, cases of battered and abused women are some of the crimes reported with high rates of incidence. The rate is so alarming that such crimes were attributed to the failure of government to implement its reforms, policies and guidelines aimed at suppressing these crimes and