Holding International Public-Private Partnership
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University of South Carolina Scholar Commons Theses and Dissertations 1-1-2013 Holding International Public-Private Partnership Accountable: An Analysis of Sensitivity and Vulnerability Dynamics In Ghana'S Water Sector Reform and Its Impact On the Target Population Xi Chen University of South Carolina - Columbia Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarcommons.sc.edu/etd Part of the Political Science Commons Recommended Citation Chen, X.(2013). Holding International Public-Private Partnership Accountable: An Analysis of Sensitivity and Vulnerability Dynamics In Ghana'S Water Sector Reform and Its Impact On the Target Population. (Doctoral dissertation). Retrieved from https://scholarcommons.sc.edu/etd/2445 This Open Access Dissertation is brought to you by Scholar Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of Scholar Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. ! HOLDING INTERNATIONAL PUBLIC-PRIVATE PARTNERSHIP ACCOUNTABLE AN ANALYSIS OF SENSITIVITY AND VULNERABILITY DYNAMICS IN GHANA’S WATER SECTOR REFORM AND ITS IMPACT ON THE TARGET POPULATION by Xi Chen Bachelor of Arts China Foreign Affairs University, 2004 Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements For the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Political Science College of Arts and Sciences University of South Carolina 2013 Accepted by: David Whiteman, Major Professor Donald Puchala, Committee Member Laura Woliver, Committee Member Roger Coate, Committee Member Lacy Ford, Vice Provost and Dean of Graduate Studies © Copyright by Xi Chen, 2013 All Rights Reserved. ii! DEDICATION To my maternal grandfather Chen Jianfu, with loving memories iii! ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This research project would never have reached its completion without the assistance, guidance, and support of a number of people. First and foremost, I would like to thank my family for their support of my academic career—for acknowledging the importance of education and encouraging my pursuit of scholarly aspirations. In particular, I am grateful that my paternal grandfather, Mr. Chen Haiqing, has put the desire for academic excellence in my heart from an early age. I would also like to thank the professors who have lent me their support during my graduate studies, especially during the writing period of this dissertation. Professor Roger Coate, my mentor, deserves special recognition for bringing me up from a twenty-year-old boy who had just graduated from college to a mature scholar. Professors Don Puchala, Laura Woliver, David Whiteman, and Betty Glad have also had their scholarly influence on me, for which I am truly thankful. In addition, I am in debt to fellow graduate student and colleague Mr. Chris Peter Aluah and my friend Ms. Di Luong for setting me up with contacts in Ghana before my field work in 2010. I am also very grateful to the Walker Institute of International and Area Studies for offering me their International Experience Award, which partially funded my field trip to Ghana. In Ghana, Mr. Francis Apiamo and his family and Lieutenant Colonel Jackson Wonje were very gracious hosts. I am thankful that many staff members of GWCL, AVRL, PURC, Ghana Statistical Services, ISODEC, and the iv! World Bank country office in Accra spared their time for interviews and provided research materials. In particular, Mr. Leo Shang-Quartey of ISODEC was a good friend and scholarly partner who lent me access to the ISODEC library and answered my numerous questions about the water reform scheme. Additionally, I am thankful that Mrs. Anita Tarlton and Mr. David Waters took me on a two-week tour of Ghana during their mission trip to install water purification equipment in rural Ghana, from which I learned a great deal about the country. The field research in Ghana resulted in several conference papers presented at the annual conferences of the Midwest Political Science Association, the International Studies Association, and the International Studies Association-South. Discussants and audience members at these conferences provided valuable feedback. These papers are the backbone of the analyses in Chapters Seven and Eight. The manuscript would not have met any adequate publication standards had Ms. Alexis Stratton, a very good friend of mine whom I hold in high esteem, not proofread all chapters of this dissertation with extraordinary editing skills. Mrs. Anita Tarlton also read an early draft of one chapter. Ms. April Adams, with her skillful touches, drew the author’s hand-drawn matrices on a computer. Finally, I would like to thank the Central European University (CEU) in Budapest, Hungary, for organizing and accepting me to their summer schools in 2006 and 2009, and Professor Roger Coate for bringing me to the summer schools. Professor Tim Shaw provided the first reading list, based on which I developed the first draft of the prospectus during those sleepless nights at the CEU dorm on Kerepesi út in 2009. v! ABSTRACT This study explores the interaction among stakeholders involved in global public- private partnerships, using and developing the theoretical framework provided by the interdependence theory’s sensitivity and vulnerability analysis, which is further supplemented by the stakeholder’s analysis and the two-level game model. Citing the case of Ghana’s water sector reform, it looks into the dynamics among four categories of stakeholders involved in the partnership, namely the public and private partners, the World Bank (as the broker), and Ghanaian civil societies representing a broad spectrum of the local population. It is charged with the task of investigating the negotiation dynamics of all the listed actors in relation to each other through the lenses of the enriched sensitivity and vulnerability framework. It explains the process in order to discover what kinds of impact the group dynamics have on the choice of the partnership type in conjunction with the question whether it helps the host country (Ghana) to achieve, on a smaller scale, the partnership targets, and on a larger scale, water-related Millennium Development Goals. vi! TABLE OF CONTENTS DEDICATION ....................................................................................................................... III ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS........................................................................................................ IV ABSTRACT .......................................................................................................................... VI LIST OF TABLES................................................................................................................... X LIST OF FIGURES ................................................................................................................ XI LIST OF SYMBOLS.............................................................................................................. XII LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS ..................................................................................................XIII CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION................................................................................................. 1 1.1 RESEARCH QUESTIONS.......................................................................................... 2 1.2 DISSERTATION STRUCTURE................................................................................... 3 1.3 THE BONA FIDE STATEMENT ................................................................................ 7 CHAPTER 2: INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATION AND GLOBAL PUBLIC-PRIVATE PARTNERSHIPS................................................................................ 8 2.1 THE BACKGROUND: STEPS LEADING TO UNGA RESOLUTION 56/76.................. 10 2.2 THE BIGGER PICTURE ......................................................................................... 30 2.3 RESOLUTION 56/76: THE TRAGEDY OF (MIS) INTERPRETATION .......................... 39 2.4 BRIEF PROFILES OF SELECTED AGENCIES ........................................................... 53 2.5 IMPERFECT PARTNERSHIPS.................................................................................. 59 2.6 CONCLUSION....................................................................................................... 67 CHAPTER 3: INTERNATIONAL FINANCIAL INSTITUTIONS, THE RETURN OF NEOLIBERALISM, AND PSI/PPP IN WATER SECTOR REFORM .............................. 71 3.1 THE WEAKNESS OF THE PUBLIC SECTOR............................................................. 77 vii! 3.2 MERITS OF PRIVATE SECTOR PARTICIPATION ..................................................... 82 3.3 CRITICISM OF PRIVATE SECTOR PARTICIPATION ................................................. 90 3.4 MANIFESTATIONS IN BOTH DEVELOPED AND DEVELOPING WORLDS ............... 116 3.5 NEOLIBERAL REFORMS IN THE WATER SECTOR................................................ 121 3.6 CONCLUSION..................................................................................................... 131 CHAPTER 4: A DECADE AND HALF’S JOURNEY: NEGOTIATING A WATER PARTNERSHIP (1990–2005)....................................................................... 135 4.1 STATISM IN GHANA........................................................................................... 137 4.2 NEOLIBERALISM IN GHANA............................................................................... 142 4.3 GHANA WATER: PRIOR TO PSI/PPP.................................................................. 152 4.4 NEGOTIATING A WATER PSI/PPP