Privatizing Public goods? Analyzing the drivers and consequences of forest and water sector reforms around the globe

A joint Master theses project, Dave Huitema, Public Administration and Policy Group and Georg Winkel, Forest and Nature Conservation Policy Group, Wageningen University.

Background

States own the majority of the world’s forests and most of the world’s freshwater, and forests and water are frequently considered to be public goods of tremendous importance for the environment. At the same time, these critical natural resources are also much demanded and used by societies.

In many countries, during the last two decades, the management of forests and freshwater has been at least partially privatized, also taking different forms and shapes ranging from new public management oriented public administrations to fully privatized privately owned companies. These reforms were driven by a large variety of motivations and justifications, inter alia to increase the efficiency of management of these resources, to break up professional or sectorial ideologies that were seen as inefficient, to make management more responsive to private sector and partially public demands, but also to create and support domestic industries and develop (publicly owned) companies that also compete internationally. Arguably, most of these reforms happened during a period dominated by (neo-)liberal governance discourses prior to the financial crisis in 2008/2009. Reforms have partially met strong resistance by social and environmental NGOs and citizen initiatives who, inter alia, feared that efficiency gains would come at the expense of environmental or social benefits, and that rather profits for some than efficiency for many would increase. While in some parts a reversal of the reforms can be observed given perceived failures, in many cases the newly established organizations remain in place, and systematic evaluation to their consequences is lacking, or not taken up.

Objective and approach

The main rationale of this shared master theses project is to analyze the drivers for these reforms, and to explore their consequences. This is a discussion that has played out in a complex interaction between multiple levels (for instance at the national and international levels, but also locally). Specifically, we ask

1) Which factors have been driving sector reforms in the forest and water sector? Who put the reforms on the agenda, which discursive and institutional factors enabled them, and what role did economic interest play? Which were the main arguments used to legitimize the reforms?

2) How was the opposition to these reforms constituting, and which strategies did they use to oppose the reforms?

3) Which factors are seen as decisive for the reforms to go through?

4) How are these reforms discussed today? Have the main supporting and opposing groups, their beliefs/interests and arguments/discursive strategies changed?

5) How are the consequences of the reforms evaluated by diverse actor groups?

We are interested in case studies from various contexts where such reforms took place. Students are free in developing their theoretical perspective and specifying case specific research questions, but we expect them to contribute to the main research questions outlined above. We further expect students to work empirically, that is, conduct interviews, analyze document or draw on other adequate methods of social science research. Purely conceptional or theoretical theses are not encouraged.

Recruitment of students, process

This theses project is advertised in the Master Forest and Nature Conservation, the Master Governance of Sustainability transformations, and the Master of International Development Studies. Students will be supervised either by Dave Huitema (water) or Georg Winkel (forests) following the respective rules of the main programs. Students are contributing to a student based international research program that also aims at academic publications, which will be encouraged provided Master theses met the respective quality criteria.

Application

Interested candidates should submit a CV, a brief motivation letter, and an example of previous academic work.

For more details, please contact Dave Huitema.