Structuring the Interstitial Space of Global Financing Partnerships for Sustainable Development: A Network Analysis

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.

KEYWORDS:

• Innovative financing
• sustainable development
• space between fields
• global partnerships
• power
• social network analysis (SNA)

Acknowledgements

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.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Notes

1 This framing of ‘millions to billions’ tends to ignore the cost of ‘business as usual’; the price of social and environmental costs (constructed as economic ‘externalities’) is not subtracted from the cost of changing to more sustainable practices.

2 See also Finnemore and Sikkink (1998); Reinicke (1999).

3 The Charters of the global financing partnerships investigated define a term length (usually 2–3 years) for executive board members, with the possibility of renewal.

4 See also Finnemore and Sikkink (1998); Reinicke (1999).

5 See for example, Ehrenstein and Neyland (2018) in health; Faul (2014) in education; and Allan (2017) in climate change.

6 The Charters of the global financing partnerships investigated define a term length (usually 2–3 years) for executive board members, with the possibility of renewal.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Swiss Network for International Studies SNIS [grant number 3369].

Notes on contributors

Moira V. Faul

Moira V. Faul is Executive Director of NORRAG at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, Geneva.

Jordan S. Tchilingirian

Jordan S. Tchilingirian is Lecturer at the School of Social Sciences, University of Western Australia.