A Relational and Multi-Scalar Analysis of Neoliberal Philanthropy and Think Tank Advocacy in Latin America

• In Event: Microsociologies, Mezosociologies, and Macrosociologies: Scale, Level, Integration

Abstract

How do transnational partnerships between global philanthropic foundations and local think tanks operate in practice, and why do some relationships become durable and consequential while others remain fragile or largely ceremonial? Drawing on an original database of transnational partnerships, 152 in-depth interviews, archival research, and participant observation, this paper examines the operation of multi-scalar transnational interorganizational networks within neoliberal advocacy in Latin America. The paper first theorizes a distinctive organizational object: networks composed of formally independent organizations operating simultaneously across global, regional, and national levels, without hierarchical integration or centralized authority. Rather than treating such networks as coherent or unitary structures, I argue that coordination within these multi-scalar interorganizational forms is produced—and often undermined—through a set of relational mechanisms that operate unevenly across levels and over time. The paper identifies and illustrates four such mechanisms: (1) “Ideological alignment and boundary work” shape the establishment of partnerships at the dyadic level but remain unstable as political meanings are translated across national contexts; (2) “Governance through intermediation” stabilizes partnerships through bureaucratic brokers and alumni networks, while generating mistrust and selective exclusion; (3) “Associational coordination” operates through regional federations that foster communication and symbolic unity, yet remain episodic and weakly binding; and over time, (4) “cumulative advantage” transforms repeated partnering decisions across levels into unequal organizational trajectories, concentrating resources and authority among a small subset of long-established organizations. Taken together, these mechanisms explain why multi-scalar interorganizational networks that appear expansive and cohesive at a structural level often generate fragile cooperation, uneven coordination, and persistent organizational inequality. The analysis contributes to organizational debates on transnational governance by theorizing how transnational cooperation is effortfully enacted across multiple scales and temporalities, and to the sociologies of culture and economic and political life by showing how classificatory frameworks and moral evaluations structure advocacy across borders.

Author

• Tomas Gold, University of Southern California