‘Sharing’ political authority with finance capital: The case of Britain's Public Private Partnerships

Since the early 1980s, there has been a global trend to increasingly use private finance for public infrastructure. Part of a broader range of policies associated with the neoliberal agenda, such arrangements have become known as Public Private Partnerships (PPPs). While the proponents of PPPs stress the savings to be made by using financial intermediaries, the financial outcomes have been very different from the stated objectives. This paper seeks to develop this work by going beyond a financial assessment of the policy, focusing on political power and the way that the policy has led to a shift in the power of the state relative to the corporations. Using evidence from case studies of operational projects in the UK as exemplars, it will show how financial advisors, typically the big four international accountancy firms, play an increasingly important role in the development and implementation of policy, and how once projects are operational the private sector partners are increasingly able to strengthen their own position vis a vis the state. As such, the creeping privatisation espoused by all governments, the international financial institutions, the EU, and transnational corporations is an expression of more fundamental processes: the increasing domination of finance capital.