Customer Reviews

Outsourcing Sovereignty: Why Privatization of Government Functions Threatens Democracy and What We Can Do about It

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In this fascinating book, Paul Verkuil, Professor of Law at Cardozo Law School, Yeshiva University, examines the USA's shift from public government to private governance. Outsourcing rose by 86% between 2000 and 2005 and the value of non-competitive contracts rose by 115%, mainly due to the war on Iraq.

He examines the public/private distinction, constitutional governance, the limits of delegation, contract theory, and structural reforms. He uses constitutional, statutory, administrative and contractual sources and work in delegation theory and transactions cost analysis.

Under the US Constitution, the people is the sovereign power, delegating its powers to the three branches of the state, executive, legislature and judiciary, which are supposed to be agents of the people. But delegating sovereign powers to private hands undermines the state's capacity to govern. Outsourcing political decisions threatens the democratic principle of accountability.

Verkuil looks at the private military, private disaster relief, private border control, private prisons and private police. He argues that the planning and execution of responses to disasters are core government duties. He notes that after 9/11, Congress voted to `deprivatise' airport security, over Bush's opposition. Private security firms had treated security as a cost-control item, forcing down the quality of services. He notes, "In Europe, the preference for public sector solutions has been trumped by a higher principle congenial both to community integration and the world of privatization." Why higher?

Privatisation does not improve performance: research shows that professional civil servants manage better than political appointees, but then better performance is only the politicians' claim, not privatisation's real aim. Its real aim is to maximise profit - which Verkuil manages not to see, writing, "Outsourcing in the face of both accountability and efficiency objections is inexplicable."

He concludes that the use of contractors to displace functions normally performed by government officials is a danger to democracy, and so should be curtailed. We need to secure and preserve public values and oppose the current unprecedented delegation of powers to private firms.

Dr. Verkuil, who's book is subtitled Why Privatization of Government Functions Threatens Democracy and What We Can Do About It, is very interesting perspective on this evolving field of government policy. Throughout this slim (less than 200 page) volume he presents many instances where Outsourcing has gone too far into the essential tasks which should be reserved to the Federal Executive, but have slowly crept into the hands of contractors. Beginning with the Iran-Contra scandal, Verkuil traces the evolution of the private military and other contracting expansion through Bush I, Clinton, and Bush II administrations.
The chapters concentrate on specific places where practice or law has caused an erosion in governmental control; Transportation Security, Public-Private boundaries, and Contracting legal theory are just three areas of concentration. A theme running throughout the text is the concept that "The People" possess and provide the foundations upon which governance is built. He repeated returns to the idea that the nation needs to be aware of, alert to, and take action against this threat to democracy. In doing so he makes a number of very valid points;
* The federal government has not grown in a thoughtful and guided manner. The establishment of the Department of Homeland Security, where contractors equal or exceed federal employees, is an example of contracting gone too far.
* The use of contractors makes lines of responsibility and accountability blur or disappear. Who does a prisoner tortured by a contractor sue for war crimes reparations?
* The hollowing out of the federal government, especially in senior leadership roles, has left us with a less loyal and reliable government. The ranks of the Senior Executive Services have not changed noticeably in 40 years, while our federal budget has ballooned to over 8 times its size, adjusted for inflation, during the same period.
The conclusion, Wherein the Principle Instructs Her Agents, is a thoughtful incitement for action to the Executive, Legislative, and Judicial branches of government. While I may disagree with some of the vitriol now popularly slung around the A-76 (Competitive Sourcing) program, I largely agree with the conclusions of the author and commend this book to those involved in Multi-Sector Workforce Management.

I was required to buy this book for a class- and wow, was it worth it! A great read for anyone interested in our current political state.

Very informative however i think that PSC and PMC have only scratched the surface and will play a greater role in aid, environment, and commodities It is upto NGO's to move with the times and adapt to the new challenges that face deomcracy and the spread of international values and to accept security is a fixed part of there structure going forward