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“Walk the Line”: How Institutional Influences Constrain Elites

How Institutions Matter!

ISBN: 978-1-78635-432-7, eISBN: 978-1-78635-431-0

Publication date: 16 December 2016

Abstract

Private foundations in the United States are powerful actors in contemporary society. Their influence stems in part from their lack of accountability – they operate free from market pressures or finding sources of funding, and they are not subject to formal democratic systems of checks and balances such as elections or mandatory community oversight. In recent decades, foundations have become increasingly influential in shaping public policy governing core social services. In US education policy, for example, the influence of private foundations has reached an unprecedented scope and scale. Although economic and electoral accountability mechanisms are absent, foundations are aware that their elite status is rooted in a wider acceptance of their image as promoters of the public good. They are incentivized to maintain their role as “white hat” actors and, in balancing their policy goals with the desire to avoid social sanctions, the ways in which they exert influence are shaped and limited by institutional processes. Drawing on rare elite interview data and archival analyses from five leading education funders, we observe that foundations seek to sustain their credibility by complying with legal regulations and by drawing on cultural norms of participation and science to legitimize their policy activities.

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Acknowledgements

Acknowledgment

We are grateful to Markus Höllerer, Aaron Horvath, Michael Meyer, John W. Meyer, Woody Powell, Rob Reich, and David Suárez for comments on the paper, and to members of Stanford’s Philanthropy and Civil Society workshop.

Citation

Brandtner, C., Bromley, P. and Tompkins-Stange, M. (2016), "“Walk the Line”: How Institutional Influences Constrain Elites ", How Institutions Matter! (Research in the Sociology of Organizations, Vol. 48B), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 281-309. https://doi.org/10.1108/S0733-558X201600048B010

Publisher

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Emerald Group Publishing Limited

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