What do you think?
Rate this book
The Privatized State
Why government outsourcing of public powers is making us less free
Many governmental functions today―from the management of prisons and welfare offices to warfare and financial regulation―are outsourced to private entities. Education and health care are funded in part through private philanthropy rather than taxation. Can a privatized government rule legitimately? The Privatized State argues that it cannot.
In this boldly provocative book, Chiara Cordelli argues that privatization constitutes a regression to a precivil condition―what philosophers centuries ago called "a state of nature." Developing a compelling case for the democratic state and its administrative apparatus, she shows how privatization reproduces the very same defects that Enlightenment thinkers attributed to the precivil condition, and which only properly constituted political institutions can overcome―defects such as provisional justice, undue dependence, and unfreedom. Cordelli advocates for constitutional limits on privatization and a more democratic system of public administration, and lays out the central responsibilities of private actors in contexts where governance is already extensively privatized. Charting a way forward, she presents a new conceptual account of political representation and novel philosophical theories of democratic authority and legitimate lawmaking.
The Privatized State shows how privatization undermines the very reason political institutions exist in the first place, and advocates for a new way of administering public affairs that is more democratic and just.
Many governmental functions today―from the management of prisons and welfare offices to warfare and financial regulation―are outsourced to private entities. Education and health care are funded in part through private philanthropy rather than taxation. Can a privatized government rule legitimately? The Privatized State argues that it cannot.
In this boldly provocative book, Chiara Cordelli argues that privatization constitutes a regression to a precivil condition―what philosophers centuries ago called "a state of nature." Developing a compelling case for the democratic state and its administrative apparatus, she shows how privatization reproduces the very same defects that Enlightenment thinkers attributed to the precivil condition, and which only properly constituted political institutions can overcome―defects such as provisional justice, undue dependence, and unfreedom. Cordelli advocates for constitutional limits on privatization and a more democratic system of public administration, and lays out the central responsibilities of private actors in contexts where governance is already extensively privatized. Charting a way forward, she presents a new conceptual account of political representation and novel philosophical theories of democratic authority and legitimate lawmaking.
The Privatized State shows how privatization undermines the very reason political institutions exist in the first place, and advocates for a new way of administering public affairs that is more democratic and just.
356 pages, Paperback
Published May 3, 2022
About the author
Chiara Cordelli
5 books11 followersChiara Cordelli is an associate professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Chicago. Her main areas of research are social and political philosophy, with a particular focus on theories of distributive justice, political legitimacy, normative defenses of the state, and the public/private distinction in liberal theory.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
June 10, 2022
The goal of this book is to identify what is wrong with the delegation and outsourcing of public decisions and activities to private organisations. It begins with an account of legitimate administration of the state. It goes on to shows how private organisations fail to administer in a legitimate way. Finally, it offers some suggestions for how public administration can be made more legitimate.
Most accounts of the wrongness of privatisation, locate the wrong in the delegation or outsourcing of particular functions. For example, the distinctive wrong of outsourcing punishment. By contrast, Cordelli argues that the wrongness of privatisation emerges from the aggregation of privatised functions. In brief, an increasingly privatised state corrodes citizens’ political freedom (understood in a Kantian or republican sense).
Public administration yields enormous power not only in the actions it takes but in its residual decision-making powers. What makes administration of legislative directives legitimate? Cordelli posits three (now well known) models of bureaucratic legitimacy: democratic, fiduciary, and participatory. Most obviously, administrative power is legitimate insofar as it is under the control of the people via the legislature or elected officials (democratic legitimacy). Residual discretion can be made legitimate when it is filtered through the spirit of the office that non-elected officials hold and the procedures governing their decision making such as consultation (fiduciary legitimacy). Finally, officials can also try to channel the will of the people to guide residual decisions such as when community input into decision-making (participatory legitimacy).
Cordelli goes on to show how private administration compromises these sources of legitimate administration.
Firstly, the private state alienates citizens from their capacity to rule themselves. It does this by creating vicious cycle in which government gradually loses epistemic control (i.e., the ability to understand and thereby monitor) and practical control (i.e. reverse decisions for whatever reason). Citizens may also feel less willing to challenge private actors than public ones and are likely to be dominated by the political influence of these actors.
Secondly, public ethos is undermined by contractual and other fiduciary obligations of private organisations (e.g., placed on them by shareholders). Cordelli shows how this makes it difficult to say that laws are genuinely administered in the name of the community.
Thirdly, “privatization makes it particularly difficult, if not impossible, for the practice of policy making and implementation to take the form of a shared collaborative activity.” For example, privatised administration makes it difficult for consultation to take the form of genuine partnership between policy makers and the public acting towards a shared goal.
The arguments against privatisation consist in an interesting mixture of consequentialist and non-consequentialist considerations. For example, privatisation fundamentally changes the relationship between citizens and the state (deontological) by making it extremely difficult for administrators to represent the people in its decision-making (outcome):
“legitimacy is conditional: on the ability of different agents, or lack thereof, to orient themselves toward the right kind of purposes and to act on the right kind of reasons; on the socio-organizational practices within which these agents are embedded and operate; on their ethos and cultural norms; and on their capacity, or lack thereof, to act in concert, as a part of a coherent and unified juridical community.”
Now for some more evaluative thoughts. I’m not sure how much conceptual clarity came from using a Kantian “state of nature” framework. Chapter 2 was the least enjoyable and was a reconstruction of Kant’s political philosophy. I found the sometimes scholarly and anachronistic language (e.g.,“unilateral will”) distracting.
As a book on the legitimacy of the executive branch of government, I would rate Joseph Heath’s “Machinery of Government” higher for its clarity and understanding of how the executive functions. Both books place an emphasis on the normative significance of a distinct public service ethics. However, Heath is more interested in explicating how this ethics guides the substantive policy choices. Another contrast is that while Heath understands the state’s raison d'etre as solving market failures (or collective action problems more broadly), Cordelli links it to a vaguer conception of power and the ability to change the normative situation between citizens. Overall, the privatised state is an important book on a niche but increasingly explored topic.
Most accounts of the wrongness of privatisation, locate the wrong in the delegation or outsourcing of particular functions. For example, the distinctive wrong of outsourcing punishment. By contrast, Cordelli argues that the wrongness of privatisation emerges from the aggregation of privatised functions. In brief, an increasingly privatised state corrodes citizens’ political freedom (understood in a Kantian or republican sense).
Public administration yields enormous power not only in the actions it takes but in its residual decision-making powers. What makes administration of legislative directives legitimate? Cordelli posits three (now well known) models of bureaucratic legitimacy: democratic, fiduciary, and participatory. Most obviously, administrative power is legitimate insofar as it is under the control of the people via the legislature or elected officials (democratic legitimacy). Residual discretion can be made legitimate when it is filtered through the spirit of the office that non-elected officials hold and the procedures governing their decision making such as consultation (fiduciary legitimacy). Finally, officials can also try to channel the will of the people to guide residual decisions such as when community input into decision-making (participatory legitimacy).
Cordelli goes on to show how private administration compromises these sources of legitimate administration.
Firstly, the private state alienates citizens from their capacity to rule themselves. It does this by creating vicious cycle in which government gradually loses epistemic control (i.e., the ability to understand and thereby monitor) and practical control (i.e. reverse decisions for whatever reason). Citizens may also feel less willing to challenge private actors than public ones and are likely to be dominated by the political influence of these actors.
Secondly, public ethos is undermined by contractual and other fiduciary obligations of private organisations (e.g., placed on them by shareholders). Cordelli shows how this makes it difficult to say that laws are genuinely administered in the name of the community.
Thirdly, “privatization makes it particularly difficult, if not impossible, for the practice of policy making and implementation to take the form of a shared collaborative activity.” For example, privatised administration makes it difficult for consultation to take the form of genuine partnership between policy makers and the public acting towards a shared goal.
The arguments against privatisation consist in an interesting mixture of consequentialist and non-consequentialist considerations. For example, privatisation fundamentally changes the relationship between citizens and the state (deontological) by making it extremely difficult for administrators to represent the people in its decision-making (outcome):
“legitimacy is conditional: on the ability of different agents, or lack thereof, to orient themselves toward the right kind of purposes and to act on the right kind of reasons; on the socio-organizational practices within which these agents are embedded and operate; on their ethos and cultural norms; and on their capacity, or lack thereof, to act in concert, as a part of a coherent and unified juridical community.”
Now for some more evaluative thoughts. I’m not sure how much conceptual clarity came from using a Kantian “state of nature” framework. Chapter 2 was the least enjoyable and was a reconstruction of Kant’s political philosophy. I found the sometimes scholarly and anachronistic language (e.g.,“unilateral will”) distracting.
As a book on the legitimacy of the executive branch of government, I would rate Joseph Heath’s “Machinery of Government” higher for its clarity and understanding of how the executive functions. Both books place an emphasis on the normative significance of a distinct public service ethics. However, Heath is more interested in explicating how this ethics guides the substantive policy choices. Another contrast is that while Heath understands the state’s raison d'etre as solving market failures (or collective action problems more broadly), Cordelli links it to a vaguer conception of power and the ability to change the normative situation between citizens. Overall, the privatised state is an important book on a niche but increasingly explored topic.
November 13, 2022
Thorough and engaging. The kind of applied-but-theoretically-precise philosophy one wants to see more often from the analytic tradition.
However, some of the arguments that are fundamental to the book's intricately weaved argumentative structure seem problematic. Cordelli rests her case against widespread privatisation on the claim that it equates to a collective abdication of autonomy. Private actors, Cordelli argues, can't legitimately subject citizens to rules they make, even if they have a mandate from the government. Where private rule-making abounds - as more and more governmental functions are privatised - the exercise of government fundamentally changes form, provoking a crisis of legitimacy.
What seems fishy in all this is the private rule-making part. For at least 4 reasons. For one, there seems to be a normatively relevant difference in degree between the control one ought to have about laws that limit, say, one's freedom of expression and laws that establish the medical attendance hours in private clinics. Moreover, even if rules made by private entities are more invasive than that, we must not forget that the state still has final authority. Additionally, the, mostly empirical, constraints that Cordelli claims prevent employees of private associations from legislating from the perspective of a universal will don't seem impossible to overcome - a question of (maybe very difficult, sure) fine-tuning, not of normative absoluteness. Finally, Cordelli's solution to prevent bureaucrats from being similarly imposing - the "bureaucratic ethos" - is awfully vague.
Despite all this, the book is an interesting read and, to my knowledge, the best normative argument against the overwhelming process of privatisation the West has witnessed in the last decades. This is a phenomenon analytic philosophers shouldn't be silent about. This volume is a good start.
However, some of the arguments that are fundamental to the book's intricately weaved argumentative structure seem problematic. Cordelli rests her case against widespread privatisation on the claim that it equates to a collective abdication of autonomy. Private actors, Cordelli argues, can't legitimately subject citizens to rules they make, even if they have a mandate from the government. Where private rule-making abounds - as more and more governmental functions are privatised - the exercise of government fundamentally changes form, provoking a crisis of legitimacy.
What seems fishy in all this is the private rule-making part. For at least 4 reasons. For one, there seems to be a normatively relevant difference in degree between the control one ought to have about laws that limit, say, one's freedom of expression and laws that establish the medical attendance hours in private clinics. Moreover, even if rules made by private entities are more invasive than that, we must not forget that the state still has final authority. Additionally, the, mostly empirical, constraints that Cordelli claims prevent employees of private associations from legislating from the perspective of a universal will don't seem impossible to overcome - a question of (maybe very difficult, sure) fine-tuning, not of normative absoluteness. Finally, Cordelli's solution to prevent bureaucrats from being similarly imposing - the "bureaucratic ethos" - is awfully vague.
Despite all this, the book is an interesting read and, to my knowledge, the best normative argument against the overwhelming process of privatisation the West has witnessed in the last decades. This is a phenomenon analytic philosophers shouldn't be silent about. This volume is a good start.
November 1, 2022
This book made me think differently and more deeply about privatisation. It provides a philosophical framework for thinking about the phenomenon, beyond the pure Economics 101 cost-benefit decision-making that is so widespread. My layperson's takeaway is that excessive privatisation is dangerous for much more fundamental reasons of human rights and freedom. The epilogue hints at a follow-up work that might go into more real-world examples in a more policy-prescriptive way - would love to read that! That said, there are several cases described here, from social work case handlers to prisons and hospitals. But as the author points out, the book would become impossibly long if all the practical implications were discussed in detail. As it is, a very thought-provoking book that I will think back on in many different policy contexts, and no doubt will find myself leafing through in order to reference particular sections.
January 22, 2023
a fallacious argument: just because the privatized state is bad, doesn't mean that the state that builds gulags and generates world wars is any better. not for the audience. for cordelli that means more power, the ability to hire more nephews, so there is a conflict of interests. or simpler: the book is the dishonest argument of a bureaucrat hungry for power.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews