Susan Spronk

Susan Spronk "studies development sociology and the political sociology of anti-privatization movements, with an emphasis on the social struggles against public service privatization in the Andes. She obtained her Ph.D. in Political Science from York University in Toronto, Canada, in 2007. Her dissertation, “The Politics of Third World Water Privatization: Neoliberal Reform and Popular Resistance in El Alto and Cochabamba, Bolivia,” examined the contentious politics of water privatization focusing on two case studies from Bolivia. The study was conducted with funding support from the Social Science and Humanities Research Council, the International Development Research Centre, and York University. Spronk’s research has been published in Latin American Perspectives and in Review of Radical Political Economics, and is forthcoming in International Labor and Working Class History. She was also selected by the Canadian International Development Agency in an international graduate student essay competition to present her research at the Canadian Association for the study of International Development in 2006.

"Spronk’s postdoctoral research project, “Labour Unions and the Reform of Public Utilities in Latin America: Case Studies from Bolivia, Ecuador, and Peru,” will investigate the role of public sector unions and social movements in promoting the democratic reform of public water and electricity utilities in Bolivia, Peru, and Ecuador. The key questions to be addressed are: Why do certain unions and not others form labour-community alliances when confronted by privatization? What long term effects do these alliances have on the resulting institutional arrangements for public service delivery?..." CV


 * 2005-2006 Volunteer translator, Food and Water Watch, Washington, DC (formerly Public Citizen)

Selected Articles

 * 2003 “NGOs and the Depoliticization of Development: A Case Study from Mexico,” Problématique (9)
 * 1997 Strategic Lawsuits against Public Participation: The Americanization of the Canadian System. Unpublished undergraduate thesis, Political Science, University of Alberta.