Abstract
Transnational Corporations (TNCs) and public enterprises are usually perceived as organisations that evolve in separate, not to say antagonistic, economic and ideological spheres. Public enterprises are usually associated with national or subnational organisations, often operating as publicly protected monopolies, subject to government policy and interference. TNCs, on the other hand, operate, by definition, across national borders, and are usually associated with private enterprises subject to market forces, financially accountable to shareholders and relatively independent of government interference. During the interwar period and the years following the end of the Second World War, many enterprises in Europe were nationalised, in order to limit the influence of TNCs over the national economy, amongst other reasons. Yet, from the 1980s, privatisation, liberalization, de(re)regulation1 and integration policies have been accompanied by a pronounced return of TNCs to Europe. Among the most important of these newcomers is the transnational public enterprise, particularly those that operate in networks, such as communications, transportation, electricity, gas, postal/logistic and water sectors. Though there was some, limited, public network service transnationalisation during the C19fh — mainly undertaken by private entrepreneurs2 — the rise of the transnational public network service at the end of the C20th is dramatic in scope and importance. During the first few years of the 1990s, public network services were entirely absent from the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) list of the world’s top fifty non-financial TNCs: just one decade later, they constituted thirteen of the top fifty.3
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References
The term de(re)regulation is used because the deregulation of industry and services has usually led to the emergence of new regulatory bodies. See M Thatcher (2002) Regulation after deregulation: independent regulatory agencies in Europe, J European Public Policy 9(6) pp. 954–972.
See R Millward (2005) Public and Private Enterprise in Europe: Energy, telecommunications and transport 1830–1990, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
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J Clifton, F Comín & D Diaz-Fuentes (2003) Privatisation in the European Union, Dordrecht: Kluwer.
See (eds.) J Clifton, F Comín & D Díaz-Fuentes (2007) Transforming Public Enterprise in Europe and North America: Networks, Integration and Transnationalisation, London: Palgrave.
J Clifton, F Comín & D Díaz-Fuentes (2005) Empowering Europe’s Citizens? On the Prospects for a Charter of Services of General Interest, Public Administration Review, 7(3) pp. 417–443.
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Whilst D Parker (ed) (1998) Privatisation in the European Union, London: Routledge highlights diversity of EU privatisation, J Clifton, F Comín & D Díaz-Fuentes (2003 and 2006) point to some common, European logics.
Although P Ghauri and L Oxelheim (2004) European Union and the Race for Foreign Direct Investment in Europe, Oxford: Elsevier, highlight a ‘race’ for FDI within the EU, most attention continues to be paid to the manufacturing sector, failing to recognise the trend of FDI in telecommunications, electricity, gas and water in the region. A Rugman (2005) The Regional Multinationals, Oxford: Oxford University Press, has developed his thesis on regional multinationals, but, again, there is little focus on the network services. The important exception is the UNCTAD World Investment Report published in 2004, subtitled The Shift Towards Services.
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V Schneider (2002) ‘The institutional transformation of telecommunications between Europeanisation and Globalization’, in (ed.) J Jordana, Governing Telecommunications and the New Information Society in Europe, Edward Elgar.
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For the last two decades, debate on enterprise has been dominated by a dichotomisation of public and private ownership with their associated merits: this dichotomy has exaggerated and over-simplified differences in enterprise. For more discussion see J Clifton, F Comín and D Díaz-Fuentes (2003).
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H Schröeter (1994) ‘Foreign Direct Investment and Mentality: the Nearby factor in Austrian, German and Swiss Investment’ in H Pohl (ed.) Transnational Investment from the 19th Century to the Present, Stuttgart, pp. 205–226.
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Clifton, J., Comín, F., Díaz-Fuentes, D. (2008). The Rise of the New Public Service Transnationals: European or Global Phenomenon?. In: Schröter, H.G. (eds) The European Enterprise. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-74038-4_15
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-74038-4_15
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