Unequal partners? Networks, centrality, and aid to international education

ABSTRACT

Following the 2005 Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness, international development policy discourses have focused on partnership as an overarching principle. With a focus on participation and non-hierarchical relationships, new partnerships aim to reconstitute the aid relationship in a way that obviates power inequality and hegemony. However, empirical studies of these partnerships are scarce. This paper uses social network analysis to analyse relationships between organisations involved in prominent partnerships for education in international development. Our analysis of an original dataset demonstrates that bilateral donors, civil society organisations, and international organisations are most likely to occupy central positions in this network, meaning that they enjoy high levels of connectivity to many organisations. Literature on international networks suggests that these organisations would therefore shape the flow of information and ideas between organisations, influence the distribution of resources among members, and determine normative preferences of the partnerships. In contrast, recipient governments, private businesses, and universities occupy peripheral positions. We contextualise these findings with respect to literature on aid in international education and privatisation in the political economy of educational development.

KEYWORDS:

• Social network analysis
• global governance
• partnership
• aid
• international education

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Francine Menashy is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Leadership in Education at the University of Massachusetts Boston. Her research focuses on aid to education, private sector engagement, and the educational policies of international financial institutions.

Robin Shields is Senior Lecturer in Higher Education Management at the University of Bath, School of Management. His research focuses on the globalisation of education, using a sociological approach to study global trends in policy and practice.

Notes

1 All data and files used in the analysis are available under an open source license at: https://osf.io/z3n49/.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by a fellowship with the National Academy of Education and the Spencer Foundation.