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Dickinson, Laura A. --- "Organizational Structure, Institutional Culture and Norm Compliance in an Era of Privatization: The Case of US Military Contractors" [2010] ELECD 834; in Rose-Ackerman, Susan; Lindseth, L. Peter (eds), "Comparative Administrative Law" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2010)

Book Title: Comparative Administrative Law

Editor(s): Rose-Ackerman, Susan; Lindseth, L. Peter

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781848446359

Section: Chapter 31

Section Title: Organizational Structure, Institutional Culture and Norm Compliance in an Era of Privatization: The Case of US Military Contractors

Author(s): Dickinson, Laura A.

Number of pages: 19

Extract:

31 Organizational structure, institutional culture and
norm compliance in an era of privatization: the
case of US military contractors
Laura A. Dickinson*


The privatization of governmental functions has long since become a fixture of the
American political landscape. From the management of prisons, to the provision of
welfare and other services, to the running of schools, federal and state governments in
the United States have handed over more and more tasks to either for-profit or non-
profit private enterprises. Indeed, a 2003 Harvard Law Review symposium went so far
as to declare ours an `Era of Privatization' (Symposium: Public Values in an Era of
Privatization 2003). While some scholars have extolled the cost savings that privatization
may bring, others have expressed deep misgivings (for example, Domberger and Jensen
1997: 72­5), arguing that privatization threatens to erode legal and democratic account-
ability (Dolovich 2005). Such scholars worry that, because private actors are usually not
subject to the constitutional and administrative law norms that apply to governments
(Metzger 2003: 1374­76), any purported efficiency gains from privatization may come at
the cost of losing important public values.1 More recently, an emerging middle-ground
position embraces privatization while seeking new mechanisms for extending public
values through contract (for example, Freeman 2000), democratic participation (for
example, Aman 2004), and other modes of accountability.2
Despite this rich debate about privatization in the domestic context, far less atten-
tion has been paid to the simultaneous privatization of what might be called the ...