Public-private partnerships: Perspectives on purposes, publicness, and good governance

• Published in: Public administration and development Vol. 31; no. 1; pp. 2 - 14
• Main Authors: Brinkerhoff, Derick W., Brinkerhoff, Jennifer M.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Chichester, UK John Wiley & Sons, Ltd 01.02.2011; Wiley Periodicals Inc
• Subjects: Business; Cambodia; Capacity building approach; Civil Society; Comparative advantage; Copyrights; Diaspora; Economic Development; Enterprises; Factories; good governance; Governance; Government and politics; Health care delivery; Health Care Services; Health services; Incentives; Infrastructure; international norms; Medical service; Partnership; Partnerships; Poverty; Poverty alleviation; Public administration; Public policy; Public private partnerships; Public Sector Private Sector Relations; Public services; Public-private partnership; Public-private sector cooperation; publicness; Religious organizations; Service delivery; Social policy; Social problems; Studies; Transparency; Values
• ISSN: 0271-2075; 1099-162X
• DOI: 10.1002/pad.584

Public–private partnerships (PPPs) have long been advocated and analyzed as organizational solutions to pressing societal problems that call for the comparative advantages of government, business, and civil society. However, ongoing questions remain about how to design, manage, and assess PPPs. The large literature on PPPs suffers from conceptual imprecision, and is weakly integrated. This article seeks to address these problems. It offers a discussion of partnership definitions and builds a framework that examines the features of PPPs as they relate to achieving particular purposes: policy, service delivery, infrastructure, capacity building, and economic development. The article summarizes the contributions to the symposium: social enterprise PPPs that target poverty reduction, health service delivery partnerships with faith‐based organizations, diasporas as partners for international development, the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative, and the Better Factories Cambodia partnership. In examining cross‐cutting themes, the analysis focuses on publicness and potential to promote international norms associated with good governance. Conclusions address the role of new partners in PPPs, the difficulties in finding a balance of interests and incentives among partners, the implications of embodying and promoting international good governance norms and values, the different sources of authority that operate within PPPs, and the trade‐offs among PPPs' advantages. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.