Privatization and the Welfare State

Looking at the theory and practice of privatization in its broadest manifestations, the contributors to this volume scrutinize the combination of public and private initiatives that makes up the present U.S. social sector. As they discuss privatization both in production and delivery of services and in financing, they reveal complexities that have been ignored in recent ideological arguments. This book, while warning about political misuse of privatization, offers an unusually rigorous definition and theory of the concept and presents a number of case studies that show how public and private sectors variously cooperate, compete, or complement one another in social programs--and how various systems have accommodated to the privatization rhetoric that has come to the fore under the Reagan administration.

The contributors are Marc Bendick, Jr., Evelyn Z. Brodkin, Arnold Gurin, Alfred J. Kahn, Sheila B. Kamerman, Michael O'Higgins, Martin Rein Richard Rose, Paul Starr, Mitchell Sviridoff, and Dennis Young.

Originally published in 1989.

The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.