Infrastructure public-private partnerships (PPPs) are dominantly seen as part of an increasingly fragmented and uncertain public management paradigm known as New Public Governance (NPG). However, the effects of institutional maturity on PPP utilization within this domain remain understudied. In order to (re)define PPPs within the NPG paradigm, we develop a PPP institutional maturity model based on three institutional capabilities-legitimacy, trust, and capacity. We then use the U.S. PPP market as a case example to explore how the maturity of PPPs in an institutional setting depends on legitimacy, trust, and capacity in the PPP model.

The novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic is placing unprecedented stress on public-private partnerships (PPPs), creating the real possibility of widespread project failures. The disruption and potential collapse of multiple PPP projects will likely trigger force majeure contractual provisions, but the applicability and efficacy of these generic catch-all clauses remain in question. This critical note therefore discusses the implications of force majeure contractual conditions on PPPs in the COVID-19 epoch. We first define the concept of force majeure as it pertains to pandemics. Next, we review a select number of international policies for such events, outlining their key features and glaring shortcomings. Then, we use Novia Scotia’s Highway 104 Twinning Project as an illustrative case example of improved force majeure risk management. Finally, after reflecting on the three ironies of construction crisis management, we outline the need for swift trust in PPPs during this current pandemic and conclude by calling for a comprehensive revision of force majeure contract provisions.

This study explores whether different constellations of institutional factors create unique causal ‘paths’ to mature PPP market performance. Using fuzzy set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (fsQCA), the institutional settings of 48 different PPP markets across Latin American and the Caribbean (LAC), Central and Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and Africa (CEMA), and the Asia-Pacific region (APAC) are examined. The results show market reliability, political and social will, and regulatory regimes are necessary, but alone not sufficient, conditions for mature PPP market performance. The absence of market transparency also appears to be far less problematic for PPP market performance than previously assumed.

Abstrac t: The coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic has overwhelmed many national healthcare systems around the world. In attempts to meet their emergency needs and mitigate escalating challenges, governments are increasingly reaching out to the private sector to form sustainable, public-private partnerships (PPPs). Unfortunately, many of these ad hoc efforts have been reactive and uncoordinated to date. This perspective article thus offers a proactive, collaborative, and strategic vision for healthcare PPPs, focusing on short-, medium-, and long-term proposals that will harmonize strategic objectives and mobilize both public and private resources to combat and build resilience against global pandemics like COVID-19.

In response to climate change issues, increasing numbers of vanguard projects are being established to help governments achieve sustainability goals through rapid technology development. We focus on the transition intermediation literature to argue that vanguard projects, as intermediation spaces, enable core and external project actors to assume intermediary characteristics to align, negotiate, and pursue policy level goals beyond the remit of conventional project goals. We contribute to project studies by providing a macrolevel contextualization of vanguard projects in the wider sociotechnical transitions debates. We suggest that transition intermediation is key for understanding projects and their achievement of wider policy goals.