Network governance and new philanthropy in Latin America and the Caribbean: reconfiguration of the State

Abstract

This paper draws on the literature on network governance and new philanthropy to characterize and explain the increased involvement of non-State actors in education policymaking in the Dominican Republic. The study reveals, first, how network governance has intensified since 2010 through hybrid public-private spaces of agenda setting, second, how these hybrid spaces have given way to the emergence of new philanthropy, which engages directly with the State as part of its efforts to influence policymaking, and, third, that new philanthropy is evolving to include, as well, the generation of profits, both within and beyond the Dominican Republic, through the creation of an affiliated profit-seeking consulting entity. The paper concludes by arguing that future studies should bring the concepts of network governance and new philanthropy into conversation with theoretical approaches that emphasize the underlying political-economic structures within which non-State actors operate.