INTRODUCTION

Concerns have recently been raised on the negative aspects of private involvement in infrastructures, a discourse for which the rise of private equity funds, foreign actors and discussions on the – possible – transfer of ownership into private hands provide the new context. More generally, the desirability of the private actors’ involvement in infrastructures has become an ever more probing issue in political debates. There is no doubt that many new actors have come to the fore, albeit that differences between infrastructures are substantial. It would be too simplistic, however, to limit the effects of regime change on the actor constellation to the mere emergence of private actors next to a public actor that used to have a monopoly position. Inevitably, the emergence of new actors – but also other manifestations of regime change – has caused existing relations to change and new relations to develop. These changes have demonstrated that the role and position of government is, in fact, a multifaceted one, because it comprises decision making, financing, regulating and supervising functions, but also (in sectors in which regime change has had only limited effects) operational functions and ownership.

This chapter addresses two issues. First, it focuses on the developments in the actor constellation. As a result of regime change, both the roles, and the interests and interactions between the (now multiple) actors have changed. Secondly, this chapter shows that the intensity of the change is in part a function of the degree of regime change itself and is also intrinsically linked to the degree and the type of competition in the sectors.

When analysing the trends in actor constellations, the differences between the various sectors cannot be ignored. In some sectors, infrastructures are now in private hands, and a regulator has been introduced (electronic communications). In other sectors, the state has awarded a concession to a publicly owned company (railways), while in still others the network is in the hands of public owners (drinking water). In the gas and electricity sectors, networks are owned and operated by a regulated monopoly. Lastly, regime change may have resulted in a public organisation, such as a government department or a local authority, outsourcing various activities, such as waste management, to private actors. Although the actual situation may thus differ from sector to sector, parallels may nevertheless be drawn with regard to the underlying trends and issues they are faced with.