IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/hal/wpaper/hal-01023795.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

On Equity in India's Water Supply Public-Private Partnerships

Author

Listed:
  • Swann Bommier

    (PhD Program - ESSEC Business School)

  • Cécile Renouard

    (ESSEC Business School)

Abstract

This article studies the implementation of a public-private partnership (PPP) in the water supply sector in Nagpur (Maharashtra, India). Drawing upon the capability approach and the concept of disadvantage, we define equity as the need to focus on the worse-off. Based on extensive field-research, we explain how the access to water is currently characterized by patronage relations and institutional discriminatory practices that perpetuate categorical inequalities. Addressing equity concerns in a PPP therefore requires questioning the existing power relations to clearly prioritize the worse-off. Our research argues that international law might be used to promote equitable processes in urban infrastructure, beyond today's focus on technical accounts and efficiency debates.

Suggested Citation

  • Swann Bommier & Cécile Renouard, 2014. "On Equity in India's Water Supply Public-Private Partnerships," Working Papers hal-01023795, HAL.
    • Handle: RePEc:hal:wpaper:hal-01023795
    Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://essec.hal.science/hal-01023795
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://essec.hal.science/hal-01023795/document
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Hailu, Degol & Osorio, Rafael Guerreiro & Tsukada, Raquel, 2012. "Privatization and Renationalization: What Went Wrong in Bolivia’s Water Sector?," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 40(12), pages 2564-2577.
    2. Tan, Jeff, 2012. "The Pitfalls of Water Privatization: Failure and Reform in Malaysia," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 40(12), pages 2552-2563.
    3. Bracking, Sarah, 2005. "Guided Miscreants: Liberalism, Myopias, and the Politics of Representation," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 33(6), pages 1011-1024, June.
    4. Kees Biekart & Erik Swyngedouw, 2013. "UN Water Report 2012: Depoliticizing Water," Development and Change, International Institute of Social Studies, vol. 44(3), pages 823-835, May.
    5. Antonio Estache & Emili Grifell-Tatj�, 2013. "How (Un)Even was the Distribution of the Impacts of Mali's Water Privatisation across Stakeholders?," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 49(4), pages 483-499, April.
    6. Anirudh Krishna, 2013. "Stuck in Place: Investigating Social Mobility in 14 Bangalore Slums," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 49(7), pages 1010-1028, July.
    7. David Mosse, 2010. "A Relational Approach to Durable Poverty, Inequality and Power," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 46(7), pages 1156-1178.
    8. Bakker, Karen & Kooy, Michelle & Shofiani, Nur Endah & Martijn, Ernst-Jan, 2008. "Governance Failure: Rethinking the Institutional Dimensions of Urban Water Supply to Poor Households," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 36(10), pages 1891-1915, October.
    9. Jha, Saumitra & Rao, Vijayendra & Woolcock, Michael, 2007. "Governance in the Gullies: Democratic Responsiveness and Leadership in Delhi's Slums," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 35(2), pages 230-246, February.
    10. Mehta, Lyla, 2014. "Water and Human Development," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 59-69.
    11. Nussbaum, Martha C, 2000. "The Costs of Tragedy: Some Moral Limits of Cost-Benefit Analysis," The Journal of Legal Studies, University of Chicago Press, vol. 29(2), pages 1005-1036, June.
    12. Tomi Kallio, 2007. "Taboos in Corporate Social Responsibility Discourse," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 74(2), pages 165-175, August.
    13. Ruggie, John Gerard, 2004. "Reconstituting the Global Public Domain: Issues, Actors and Practices," Working Paper Series rwp04-031, Harvard University, John F. Kennedy School of Government.
    14. Moon, Jeremy & Crane, Andrew & Matten, Dirk, 2005. "Can Corporations be Citizens? Corporate Citizenship as a Metaphor for Business Participation in Society," Business Ethics Quarterly, Cambridge University Press, vol. 15(3), pages 429-453, July.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. repec:hal:journl:hal-01023795 is not listed on IDEAS
    2. Bommier, Swann & Renouard, Cécile, 2014. "On Equity in India's Water Supply Public-Private Partnerships," ESSEC Working Papers WP1411, ESSEC Research Center, ESSEC Business School.
    3. Geoff Goodwin, 2018. "Water, Infrastructure and Power: Contention and Resistance in Post‐colonial Cities of the South," Development and Change, International Institute of Social Studies, vol. 49(6), pages 1616-1630, November.
    4. Pasi Heikkurinen & Jukka Mäkinen, 2018. "Synthesising Corporate Responsibility on Organisational and Societal Levels of Analysis: An Integrative Perspective," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 149(3), pages 589-607, May.
    5. Ouda, Omar K.M. & Al-Waked, Rafat F. & Alshehri, Abdulrahman A., 2014. "Privatization of water-supply services in Saudi Arabia: A unique experience," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 31(C), pages 107-113.
    6. Saiani, Carlos & Azevedo, Paulo Furquim de, 2018. "Is privatization of sanitation services good for health?," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 52(C), pages 27-36.
    7. Estrin, Saul & Pelletier, Adeline, 2018. "Privatization in developing countries: what are the lessons of recent experience?," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 87348, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    8. Thomas Laudal, 2011. "Drivers and barriers of CSR and the size and internationalization of firms," Social Responsibility Journal, Emerald Group Publishing, vol. 7(2), pages 234-256, July.
    9. Glen Whelan & Jeremy Moon & Bettina Grant, 2013. "Corporations and Citizenship Arenas in the Age of Social Media," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 118(4), pages 777-790, December.
    10. Post, Alison E. & Murillo, María Victoria, 2016. "How Investor Portfolios Shape Regulatory Outcomes: Privatized Infrastructure After Crises," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 77(C), pages 328-345.
    11. Kotsila, Panagiota & Saravanan, V. Subramanian, 2017. "Biopolitics Gone to Shit? State Narratives versus Everyday Realities of Water and Sanitation in the Mekong Delta," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 93(C), pages 374-388.
    12. Gimelli, Francesco M. & Bos, Joannette J. & Rogers, Briony C., 2018. "Fostering equity and wellbeing through water: A reinterpretation of the goal of securing access," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 104(C), pages 1-9.
    13. Lazzarini,Sergio G., 2022. "The Right Privatization," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9781316519714, September.
    14. Marson, Marta & Savin, Ivan, 2015. "Ensuring Sustainable Access to Drinking Water in Sub Saharan Africa: Conflict Between Financial and Social Objectives," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 76(C), pages 26-39.
    15. Prabhir Poruthiyil, 2013. "Weaning Business Ethics from Strategic Economism: The Development Ethics Perspective," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 116(4), pages 735-749, September.
    16. Rao, Nitya, 2017. "Assets, Agency and Legitimacy: Towards a Relational Understanding of Gender Equality Policy and Practice," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 95(C), pages 43-54.
    17. Bardhan, Pranab, 2022. "Clientelism and governance," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 152(C).
    18. Isabelle Guérin & Bert D'Espallier & G. Venkatasubramanian, 2015. "The Social Regulation of Markets: Why Microcredit Fails to Promote Jobs in Rural South India," Development and Change, International Institute of Social Studies, vol. 46(6), pages 1277-1301, November.
    19. Chandan Deuskar, 2020. "Informal urbanisation and clientelism: Measuring the global relationship," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 57(12), pages 2473-2490, September.
    20. Pies, Ingo & Hielscher, Stefan & Beckmann, Markus, 2008. "Corporate citizenship as stakeholder management: An ordonomic approach to business ethics," Discussion Papers 2008-4, Martin Luther University of Halle-Wittenberg, Chair of Economic Ethics.
    21. Andersen, Sophie Esmann & Johansen, Trine Susanne, 2021. "Corporate citizenship: Challenging the corporate centricity in corporate marketing," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 131(C), pages 686-699.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:hal:wpaper:hal-01023795. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: CCSD (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.