1 Privatisation Polina-Theopoula Chrysochou National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Greece Anglia Ruskin University, Chelmsford, UK I assume that in many ways, one might wonder what can possibly one more chapter on ‘privatisation’ have to offer? And given the vast cross-disciplinary literature on the subject, I wouldn’t blame them. It may be the case that four or five decades ago, privatisation was hardly a topic of conversation, however, in recent years it has become a buzzword, not just in political circles, but in the homes of everyday people too. More accurately, as it has been so eloquently expressed, a ‘‘buzzword which rifles through the established order like a buzz- saw’’ (Jamieson, 2000, p. 58). The term privatisation on its own can be quite useful on depicting the economic nature of its policy: transferring public industries, operations and services to the private sector, thus to private ownership and control. However, the same cannot be argued for its ideological nature, let alone the actual processes involved (c.f. Coyle, 1985; Kriesler, 2016, pp. 267-277). In order to avoid misunderstandings, I would like to clarify, from the very beginning, that in this brief chapter, privatisation is perceived as an aspect of a bigger economic and social governance (c.f. Sotiris, 2013), more precisely, as one of the many economic, social and political formulas of neoliberalism. As such, it is a certain type of conduct brought into being by a rationale, embedded in an ensemble of techniques and practices, (c.f. Dreux, 2013), which neither arose as a result of the moods of ‘apprentice magicians’ of the Chicago School or of a single cast of politicians, nor was implemented in a political and social vacuum (Chrysochou, 2018, p. 147). On the contrary, it is important to realise that economics, as Peter Kriesler (2016, p. 268) very aptly puts it, ‘‘follows fashion’’. In that sense, it is no coincidence that these ideas, already existing for decades, began to be implemented at all levels as the counterattack of powerful portions of the capital in the face of the 1970 capitalist crisis whose primary cause was the same as today’s crisis. On grounds such as these, it can be argued that the long series of restructurings, then as well as now, must be addressed as an expression of the structural need of the capital to respond to the fall in the average rate of profit and its inability to regroup and increase its profits. (Boyiopoulos, 2011; Grollios, Liampas and Pavlidis, 2015). That said, I should make clear that my intention here, especially given the limited space available in this chapter, is not to reiterate the same well-known story in terms of neoliberalism’s dark tradition and its periodisation. Instead, henceforth, some relevant references will be made when deemed appropriate, so as to bring to light important interconnections, relevant to the question of privatisation, which are not always obvious. Within the focus that I have outlined above, the shift towards privatisation, which is seen as just one of the many shifts that can be traced throughout the world, is not an unprecedented historical phenomenon. On the contrary, it takes us back to a bloody experiment and a military coup (c.f. Teeple, 1995; Klein, 2007; Grollios, Liampas and Pavlidis, 2015), despite the conscious attempts of international agencies, world bodies, organisations and governments that espouse the neoliberal dogma, to reinvent an ‘old recipe’ with the use of a