The Quest for
De-politicizing Telecommunications in Central America:
Does privatization matter?
Working Paper Nr. 2000.2
Abstract
After a period in which international financial institutions and
various research communities saw privatization as a panacea for
economic development, a consensus has emerged that its success is
dependent on a regulatory framework and the institutions capable
of enforcing it. In this paper it is argued that it is not only
the institutional context, but also the historical, structural and
political context that is of importance. State-owned telecommunication
companies have had different political roles in different countries,
and they are embedded in different state-society structures. Based
on a comparative study of the historical role of the telecommunication
companies and the process of privatization in Costa Rica and Guatemala,
this paper challenges the notion that reforms in the formal ownership
structure uniformly establish new patterns of control and new practices
for decision-making in the telecommunication sector. The starting
point for the paper is a discussion of the relevance of developmental
state literature in the so-called "information age". Further, a
typology of six different forms of state support, in which telecommunications
play a role, is developed. The examination of the case studies ends
in a discussion of the prospects of a de-politicized telecommunication
sector in Guatemala and Costa Rica.
|