How Foundations Exercise Power

Joan Roelofs

American Journal of Economics and Sociology, 2015, vol. 74, issue 4, 654-675

Abstract: Foundations (and philanthropy in general) have great political power in the United States and worldwide, yet this is hardly noted by political analysts or journalists. Their power is exerted in many ways, such as by funding progressive organizations and movements; sponsoring policy “think tanks” and organizations of public officials; influencing the political culture through media, academic researchers, and university programs (including public interest law in law schools); and co-opting activists and potential rebels among the rich and poor. Because of their resources and prestige, they are powerful members of coalitions and collaborations with overt and covert government departments, U.N. agencies, universities, and nongovernmental organizations. Foundations have been major actors in the “Cold War,” which continues as the attempt to deflect any movement towards socialism here or abroad. Globalization has amplified the power of foundations, for many of the global institutions were created by foundations and continue to be fostered by them. The sponsorship of civil society institutions worldwide by private foundations, now with additional billions from governments and international governmental institutions, supports U.S. hegemony: military, political, and economic. We cannot know what the world would have been like absent foundation activities, but the current one does not appear to have a democratic, peaceful, or sustainable future.

Date: 2015
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1111/ajes.12112 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bla:ajecsc:v:74:y:2015:i:4:p:654-675

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.blackwell ... bs.asp?ref=0002-9246

Access Statistics for this article

American Journal of Economics and Sociology is currently edited by Laurence S. Moss

More articles in American Journal of Economics and Sociology from Wiley Blackwell
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Wiley Content Delivery ().