Abstract
In this article, we theorise global financing partnerships as a ‘space between fields’ that is generated and structured by the relationships between the actors mobilised into partnership boards from different fields. We investigate the structuring of the space of partnerships through a formal network analysis of a new dataset of 188 board members of 10 global financing partnerships across climate change, education, health and nutrition. Individual board members are analysed with reference to their home organisation and sector, the boards on which they serve, and salient issue areas. Centrality and ERGM analyses reveal that, in contrast to the policy narrative of inclusive and egalitarian partnering, donors (from states, international organisations and private sector) are systematically privileged in the structuring of this partnership space. We identify network mechanisms through which systematic biases in partnership relations perpetuate existing hierarchies, and introduce the concept of ‘relational practices’ that could counter these mechanisms. Combining a theorisation of partnerships as spaces between fields with network concepts provides a distinct theoretical basis for elucidating the structuring of partnership spaces at the macro-level, through the analysis of individuals’ connections at the micro-level and inter-organisational ties at the meso-level.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 765-782 |
| Number of pages | 18 |
| Journal | New Political Economy |
| Volume | 26 |
| Issue number | 5 |
| Early online date | 25 Nov 2020 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 1 Oct 2021 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:The authors would like to thank Liliana Andonova, Michael Barnett, Emma Carmel, and Luisa Enria for their helpful comments on earlier drafts of this paper, and Bart Gabriel and Arushi Terway for their assistance. We are also grateful for the feedback from participants of the Partnerships and Power panel at the International Studies Association 2018 and the Political Networks Panel at the European Conference on Social Networks 2019, the SNIS Effectiveness of Partnerships workshop 2019, and also for the helpful critiques and comments from the editors and anonymous reviewers at NPE. All remaining errors are ours. This work was supported by the Swiss Network for International Studies (SNIS) under Grant number 3369.
Funding Information:
This work was supported by Swiss Network for International Studies SNIS [grant number 3369]. The authors would like to thank Liliana Andonova, Michael Barnett, Emma Carmel, and Luisa Enria for their helpful comments on earlier drafts of this paper, and Bart Gabriel and Arushi Terway for their assistance. We are also grateful for the feedback from participants of the Partnerships and Power panel at the International Studies Association 2018 and the Political Networks Panel at the European Conference on Social Networks 2019, the SNIS Effectiveness of Partnerships workshop 2019, and also for the helpful critiques and comments from the editors and anonymous reviewers at NPE. All remaining errors are ours. This work was supported by the Swiss Network for International Studies (SNIS) under Grant number 3369.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2020 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.
Keywords
- global partnerships
- Innovative financing
- power
- social network analysis (SNA)
- space between fields
- sustainable development
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Geography, Planning and Development
- Development
- Political Science and International Relations
