After three decades of privatization and anti-state rhetoric, government ownership and public management are back in vogue. This book explores this rapidly growing trend towards 'corporatization' - public enterprises owned and operated by the state, with varying degrees of autonomy. If sometimes driven by neoliberal agendas, there exist examples of corporatization that could herald a brighter future for equity-oriented public services.
Drawing on original case studies from Asia, Africa and Latin America, this book critically examines the histories, structures, ideologies and social impacts of corporatization in the water and electricity sectors, interrogating the extent to which it can move beyond commercial goals to deliver progressive public services. The first collection of its kind, Rethinking Corporatization and Public Services in the Global South offers rich empirical insight and theoretical depth into what has become one of the most important public policy shifts for essential services in the global South.

David McDonald is professor of global development studies at Queen's University, Canada, and co-director of the Municipal Services Project. His research relates primarily to the delivery of essential services in the global South, and encompasses a broad spectrum of related questions around urbanization, environmental justice and uneven development.

1. Public ambiguity and the multiple meanings of corporatization - David A. McDonald
2. An exceptional electricity company in an atypical social democracy: Costa Rica's ICE - Daniel Chavez
3. Hybrid water governance in Burkina Faso: the ONEA experience - Catherine Baron
4. An 'Arab Spring' for corporatization? Tunisia's national electricity company (STEG) - Ali Bennasr and Eric Verdeil
5. Modernization and the boundaries of public water in Uruguay - Susan Spronk, Carlos Crespo and Marcela Olivera
6. Can 'public' survive corporatization? The case of TNB in Malaysia - Nepomuceno A. Malaluan
7. Quasi-public: water districts in the Philippines - Buenaventura B. Dargantes, Victor G. Chiong, Hedda P. Dargantes and Elsie B. Mira
8. Corporatization in the European water sector: lessons for the global South - Emanuele Lobina and David Hall
9. Corporatization is dead ... long live corporatization? - David A. McDonald