Contemporary public-private partnership: towards a global research agenda

This chapter reviews the research pedigree on public–private partnerships (PPPs) from Broadbent and Laughlin’s seminal piece in 1999. The PPP phenomenon is viewed at ï¬ ve levels: project delivery, organizational form, policy, governance tool and as a phenomenon within a broader historical and cultural context. It is argued in this chapter that whilst a variety of research issues will continue to be relevant, ï¬ ve corresponding areas deserve future visibility for a renewed research agenda: (1) financialization of PPPs, (2) global PPP market actors, (3) internationalization of policy on PPPs, (4) long-term complex contracts as a governing regime and (5) PPPs in BRIC and developing countries. We have moved from a focus on PPP purely as projects to a focus on PPP as a phenomenon. We have also moved from a national to a more comparative studies focus; from attention on the formal and the technical, to more socio-political and informal concerns; from a few disciplinary lenses to many; and from regarding PPP as ‘the next big thing’ to seeing it as a series of ongoing experiments. PPP is now a highly internationalized and longer-term collaborative ideal. The merit and worth of PPP nonetheless remains a fundamental recurring theme within the relationship between governments and business.