Postgraduate - UnitLAW7329 - The privatising state: Reform, regulation and reinvention

This unit entry is for students who completed this unit in 2012 only. For students planning to study the unit, please refer to the unit indexes in the the current edition of the Handbook. If you have any queries contact the managing faculty for your course or area of study.

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6 points, SCA Band 3, 0.125 EFTSL

Refer to the specific census and withdrawal dates for the semester(s) in which this unit is offered, or view unit timetables.

Level	Postgraduate
Faculty	Faculty of Law
Offered	Not offered in 2012

Notes

For postgraduate Law discontinuation dates, please see http://www.law.monash.edu.au/current-students/postgraduate/pg-disc-dates.html

Synopsis

This unit investigates privatisation as a family of policies and practices within both modern and developing states. It also examines the crucial role played by regulation in governing privatised arrangements. Historical aspects of State-owned enterprise and traditional governance arrangements are explored, along with more recent privatisation trends and regulatory phenomena. A range of theoretical underpinnings for privatisation and regulation are investigated. Components include enterprise sales, contracting-out public sector services, public-private partnerships and private sector development strategy, with case studies drawn from developing countries and western liberal economies.

Outcomes

Upon completion of the unit, students will be able to:

understand the changing role of the state
define the privatisation family of policies and their place within state governance
outline the task of regulating state-owned enterprise, including aspects of history, debates, trends and issues
identify theories and political underpinnings relevant to privatization and associated regulatory arrangements
analyse a range of privatisation modes including; contracting-out of government services, enterprise sales, public-private partnerships and private sector development strategies
articulate contemporary debates on privatization and regulation and understand the crucial role played now by regulatory arrangements in the privatised state
distinguish elements of accountability in the re-regulated state.

Assessment

Research paper (3,750 words): 50%
Case study (3,000 words): 40%
Class participation: 10%

Contact hours

Students enrolled in the course will be provided with 24 contact hours of lectures/seminars per semester. Students will be expected to do reading set for class, and undertake additional research and reading as applicable to a 6 credit point unit.

Prerequisites

Any two of the prescribed core units in the Master of Regulatory Studies and the Graduate Diploma in Regulatory Studies, or subject to approval of the LLM course convenor.