Media, Law & Policy

Infrastructure and the Role of Public-Private Partnerships

Tuesday, January 9, 2018, By Sawyer Kamman

David Van Slyke, Dean of Syracuse University’s Maxwell School, is available to talk to media about public-private partnerships, a topic being discussed with the Trump administration’s infrastructure plan.

Van Slyke is a leading international expert on public-private partnerships and public sector contracts. He recently wrote an op-ed, Trump’s infrastructure plan: How “private” will he go?, about public-private partnerships in government.

“The level of investment that’s needed at every level — federal, state, and local — is so much more significant than $200 billion,” said Van Slyke in a blog post from late last year. “The president anticipates that this $200 billion would act as a government equity investment to stimulate private investment, but it’s minuscule. Infrastructure is broad and vast. What do we even mean by infrastructure?”

Van Slyke said that while public-private partnerships are not a solution to all infrastructure challenges, “to dismiss this policy tool as not useful under any conditions is a serious overreaction, further sending confusing signals to infrastructure investors, while devolving increasingly difficult investment decisions to states and localities that lack the fiscal resources to meet the needs and demands of their diverse stakeholder constituencies.”

In addition to serving as Dean of the Maxwell School, home to the #1 ranked public affairs program, Van Slyke is also the Director and Fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration, a co-editor of the Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory and the Journal of Strategic Contracting and Negotiation. He also sits on the editorial boards of several top-ranked public affairs journals. He has provided expert guidance to the Office of Management and Budget, the Government Accountability Office, the U.S. Coast Guard, and the World Bank.

Van Slyke is available to talk to media. To schedule an interview, please contact Ellen James Mbuqe, director of news and PR at Syracuse University, at ejmbuqe@syr.edu or 315.443.1897 or Keith Kobland, media manager at Syracuse University, at kkboland@syr.edu or 315.443.9038.