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PRIVATIZATIONS, DEMOCRATIZATION AND LABOR: A Comparative
Perspective on Argentina and Turkey of the 1980s
I/ Privatizations and Democratization
Political economists have extensively written about privatizations since Margaret
Thatcher in Great Britain and Ronald Reagan in the United States started pursuing them
vigorously in 1979 and 1981 respectively. Even though governments had sold assets and
contracted out services before, the 1980s are unique in that privatizations were applied,
for the first time, with the explicit aim of redefining the role of the state. The 1980s are
also particularly important for the developing world because between 1980 and 1993, the
number of privatizations that took place in Asia increased from 108 to 367, 210 to 254 in
Africa, and from 136 to 561 in Latin America. During the same period, the revenues
governments obtained as proceeds of privatizations totaled $19.7 billion in Asia, $3.2
billion in Africa, and $55.1 billion in Latin America (World Bank 1995, 27-28). Whether
privatizations brought economic development and growth has been and is a matter of
fierce controversy among both academics and policy-makers. By the same token, the
relationship between privatizations and efficiency is also disputed. There exists, however,
one point of consensus among scholars with respect to privatizations, and that is that they
are exceptionally political processes.
It is surprising how scholars in fields as diverse as economics, political science,
public policy and sociology, specializing on different regions of the world, and with
contrasting ideological backgrounds and diverse convictions on the merits of neoliberal
Convention