‘Co-evolution' between State Regulation and the Private Sector 1

The general argument of this chapter is that proper public governance enables proactive changes of private actors’ behaviour. Such governance involves interaction between public and private actors, both in policy formulation and implementation. This interactive governance goes well beyond the traditional idea of governments ‘setting the frame’. The ‘co-evolution’ ² between private and public rule-making is particularly advisable in two fields:

privatization and private-sector management of classical ‘public’ services (i.e. the topic of this book); and

the international domain, where public governance is weak and where corporate social responsibility (CSR) has emerged; the voluntary ‘type II’ commitments made at the World Summit for Sustainable Development (WSSD) in Johannesburg, 2002, are good illustrations of co-evolution.