Browsing by Subject "privatization"

The thesis focuses on the process of large-scale privatization in Russia and Kazakhstan in the 1990s, after the dissolution of the Soviet Union. The main research problem was finding the structural similarities that two countries shared before and during the implementation of the economic reforms and, also, the differences that defined the divergence of the political and economic trajectories already in the second half of the 1990s. The main method used in the thesis is a comparative analysis based on David Kang´s analytical framework described in his book ‘Crony Capitalism: Corruption and Development in South Korea and the Philippines’ (Cambridge University Press, 2002). The focus of the analysis is the balance of power between the government and the private sector as one of the main determinants of economic development. The conclusion of our work is that the large-scale privatization that was supposed to be democratic and distributive ended up enriching a small group of beneficiaries in both Russia in Kazakhstan but because of completely different reasons. Kazakhstani regime very early transformed into the predatory state where the political elite, consolidated around a strong figure of the president, could successfully take advantage of the private sector. Whereas, in Russia, stronger political polarization led to the rise of the powerful economic groups and actors (the ‘oligarchs’) that had a say in the key political decisions during the 1990s. Thus, portraying just one group of actors (whether the oligarchs or the corrupt government) as responsible for the ‘failure’ of large-scale privatization is too simplistic. The dynamics between the government and the private businesses as the system constraint was much more important.

In this study, my aim is to examine how the profitability of private early childhood education is defined and how the status of the child is determined in the news related to the corporate restructuring of a private Touhula kindergarten company. The ethos of neoliberalism influences early childhood education, and its marketization, bringing with goals related to competition, freedom of choice, and requirements of efficiency. The privatization of early childhood education is part of the marketization development. Previous research has shown that the marketization and privatization of early childhood education affects the child, families, teachers, leadership, and learning in general. In Finland, the privatization of early childhood education is on the rise. Previous studies in Finland have highlighted the unequal status of the child in private early childhood education, as there have been variations in the implementation of support and quality. The research material consisted of eighty (80) media reports related to the corporate restructuring of Touhula. In the analysis of the research material, I utilized critical discourse analysis and discursive-deconstructive reading to search for answers to my research questions. I used ATLAS.ti-software as a tool when doing the analysis. Based on my analysis, the profitability of private early childhood education and the status of the child in private early childhood education were determined in many ways. The discourses were polyphonic, overlapping, parallel, and partly contradictory. Both the profitability of private early childhood education and the status of the child reflected an economic perspective, and discourses based on measurement and quantity were on display. The discourses highlighted both the municipality's responsibility for organizing early childhood education and the profitability of private early childhood education from the municipality's point of view. The status of the child was determined to be silent and passive. The child's right to early childhood education was also raised. The research reveals the importance of language in describing reality and the power of the media in constructing this reality. The results of the study can be viewed as one picture of private early childhood education and the status of the child, but more research on the marketization and privatization of early childhood education is needed in the Finnish context.