Introduction to the Research Handbook on Privatisation

This chapter introduces the concept of privatisation as a research topic central to many of the public policy problems today. It acknowledges that the field of privatisation has become a cross-disciplinary arena, drawing on concepts from across governance, public policy, economics, public administration, politics, business management, sociology and the law to name a few. At its narrowest, privatisation is the sale of a public enterprise or establishing a contract with a private company for a public service. More broadly, it is a policy stance on what the private sector can be enabled to do for government and for citizens. At the broadest level privatisation is about who controls what occurs in the public realm within any particular cultural and social context. A section traces privatisation developments in recent decades. The chapter ends with a brief overview of the structure of the Handbook.