Professional Service Firms and Politics in a Global Era

This volume explores the influence of professional service firms on public policy-making from a global perspective. Drawing on cases studies from around the world, researchers from different disciplinesincluding sociology, political science, geography, anthropology, history, and management studiesexamine how professional service firms have generated power in the policy-making process. The chapters further investigate the structure and organization of these firms and their relationship with public agencies. They discuss the impact of strategies, techniques and models promoted by these firms on political decision-making. And they analyze how these firms have contributed to the formation of global policy-pipelines, facilitating the quick diffusion of policy ideas across time and space. Exposing how professional advisors can undermine democratic decision-making, the chapters in this book explore the potential for resistance and regulation of public-private relationships.

Reveals how the growing influence of professional service firms has: reduced democratic governance and accountability, transformed public programs into privately managed assets, led to less equitable forms of service delivery, and facilitated new forms of tax avoidance Brings together the work of leading researchers from the fields of sociology, political science, geography, anthropology, urban studies, and critical management Documents the opposition and resistance to professional service firms and the construction of alternatives

Autorentext

Chris Hurl is Assistant Professor in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Concordia University in Montréal, Canada. His research investigates urban governance, state formation, and the politics of the public sector in Canada.

Anne Vogelpohl is a Geographer and holds a Professorship for Social Sciences at HAW Hamburg, Germany. She investigates contradictions between expertise and participation and between global politics and urban everyday life.

Inhalt

1 Introduction: The rise of professional service firms as public policy actors.- 2 America First: How consultants got into the public sector.- 3 Taming uncertainty: Climate policymaking and the spatial politics of privatized advice.- 4 Who drives India's smart cities? Understanding the role of consulting firms in the Smart Cities Mission.- 5 Boutique consultancy and personal trust: Advising on cities in Moscow.- 6 Everywhere from Copenhagen: Method, storytelling, and comparison in the globalization of public space design.- 7 International consultancy firms and African states: New Debt Bonds.- 8 'The DNA of Government': Professional Service Firms, calculative technologies and the politics of municipal benchmarking.- 9 Connecting local government with global finance: Professional service firms as agents of financialization.- 10 'Infrastructure' and the Big 4: Public-private partnerships, corridors, and the expansion of capital.- 11 The corporate takeover of public policy: The case of public private partnerships in Britain.- 12 Camouflaged privatization: The influence of the Fratzscher Commission and PricewaterhouseCoopers on Berlin's schools.- 13 Hegemonic privatization and its discontents: Reflections on the statecraft of contract-based local governance in England.- 14 Expert advice? Assessing the role of the state in promoting privatized planning.- 15 Conflicting interests: Professional planning practice in publicly-traded firms.- 16 The governance of management consultancy use: Practices, problems and possibilities.