Public-Private Partnership as an Institutionalized Means for Effective Political Agency: The Case of Pemudah, Malaysia

HongLim Oei ()
Additional contact information
HongLim Oei: School of Business and Administration Wawasan Open University, Penang, Malaysia

Institutions and Economies (formerly known as International Journal of Institutions and Economies), 2012, vol. 4, issue 1, 63-84

Abstract: To facilitate input from the private sector in any government’s decision making process, the public and private sectors must engage in a discourse as partners. As a theoretical basis for such a partnership, this article looks into the political philosophy of Hannah Arendt. In Hannah Arendt’s conception of a “public world” individual human beings articulate their thoughts and feelings by engaging in a discourse with other individuals. Arendt viewed the public world as a table separating yet at the same time relating the people sitting around it, or as the ancient Greek polis where opinions are expressed and debated in the name of public interest. Utilizing the aforementioned politico-philosophical argument, this article proposes principles for a public-private partnership. These are: freedom of participation in the discourse; issues must be of common concern; while participants as private persons must speak and think in a language of public reason, and act as true representatives of all citizens. Such partnership is socially acceptable and durable, and accordingly, serves as an institutionalized means for effective political agency. Pemudah is an example of a bureaucratic entity to accommodate public-private participation.

Keywords: discourse; Pemudah; public-private partnership; public world (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: H83 J18 Z13 Z18 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2012
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://ijie.um.edu.my/filebank/published_article/3197/Fulltext4.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:umk:journl:v:4:y:2012:i:1:p:63-84

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Institutions and Economies (formerly known as International Journal of Institutions and Economies) from Faculty of Economics and Administration, University of Malaya Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Teoh Wern Jun ().