Multiple Frontiers, Multiple Entanglements: The Changing Public/Private Divide's Relationship to Other Changing Divides
20 Pages Posted: 13 Aug 2009 Last revised: 22 Aug 2009
Date Written: August 21, 2009
Abstract
This paper explores the relationship betwen the public sector/public boundary and others, including the personal/public sphere divide. It argues that there are epochal changes in boundaries related to the growth of knowledge, capitalism, globalization, postmodernity and democracy that go beyond contests between business and state actors. it develops three propositions: (1) that changes in the public/private boundary are likely to display similar features to other changing boundaries, but also to work through those other changing boundaries; (2) that the entanglement of the boundary between the private (business) sector and the public with other boundaries, means that the apparent expansion of business power is offset by the way in which business can fail to exploit ideational/material, global/local, or other boundary changes, thereby constraining business power; and (3) that the shifting public/private boundary, which authorizes the expansion of business, also authorizes its restraint, which is most evident in the connection of the public/private divide to the changing relationship of the personal to the public sphere. It then considers these in the light of four cases, globalization of tort law; North American border security, global auto safety regulation, and music file sharing.
Keywords: public sphere, private authority, global governance, business power
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