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After educational reforms in the 1980s and 1990s that reduced the role of the state in education governance through decentralization, privatization and school autonomy, Latin American countries adopted again new reforms in the 2000s guided by new global education ideas that emphasize a stronger role of the state. Yet, the interpretation of such ideas varied across countries. By comparing the cases of Chile, Argentina, and Colombia, this paper explores this variation and argues that negative consequences of previous state-retrenchment reforms provide their ‘losers’ with opportunities to become institutional entrepreneurs and demand policies that recentralized the state authority over education in ways that favour their interests. Two conditions are necessary for such change: negative consequences of the existing governance policy need to be concentrated in a specific group stimulating them to coordinate and mobilize; and challengers need to communicate their demands in ways draw legitimacy from new global ideas persuading other actors to support policy change. These two conditions permitted students in Chile and teachers in Argentina to increase the state authority in education provision and curriculum, while the absence of these conditions in Colombia led to further state retrenchment. With this comparison, this paper analyses the role of peripheral entrepreneurs in translating global ideas and influencing educational policy change in developing countries.