ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the dynamics of social change that are associated with processes of administrative decentralisation and the privatisation of public services that form the backbone of contemporary neoliberal statecraft. These processes are unsettling, and are indeed designed to unsettle, reconfigure and transform state-citizen relations. The chapter also examines the Manchester and Athens waste infrastructures in more detail, exploring how the public-private partnership (PPP) model emerged in relation to the specific needs and demands of the two cities. It shows how the design of PPPs enfolds on-going social antagonisms which complicate the positive 'win-win solution' that proponents of PPPs espouse. As McCann and Ward suggest, there are hidden struggles within policies that get discursively framed as 'successes'. The chapter explores how the attempt to translate 'best practice' from one urban context to another reveals the importance of attending to the specific negotiations through which the viability of particular 'solutions' are achieved, and the costs of such social settlements.
