Adam Moe Fejerskov - The Gates Foundations Rise to Power: Private Authority in Global Politics

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The Gates Foundations Rise to Power

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has established itself as one of the most powerful private forces in global politics, shaping the trajectories of international policy-making. Driven by fierce confidence and immense expectations about its ability to change the world through its normative and material power, the foundation advances an agenda of social and economic change through technological innovation. And it does so while forming part of a movement that refocuses efforts towards private influence on, and delivery of, societal progress.

The Gates Foundations Rise to Power is an urgent exploration of one of the worlds most influential but also notoriously sealed organizations. As the first book to take us inside the walls of the foundation, it tells a story of dramatic organizational change, of diverging interests and influences, and of choices with consequences beyond the expected. Based on extensive fieldwork inside and around the foundation, the book explores how the foundation has established itself as a major political power, how it exercises this power, but also how it has been deeply shaped by the strong norms, ideas, organizations, and expectations from the field of global development. The book will be of interest to scholars and students of global development, international relations, philanthropy and organizational theory.

Adam Moe Fejerskov is Researcher at the Danish Institute for International Studies (DIIS). He holds a PhD in international studies from Roskilde University. His research lies at the intersection of global development and international relations, with a focus on norm dynamics, rising state and non-state powers, as well as organizational and sociological theory.

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Routledge Studies in Development and Society

For a full list of titles in this series, please visit www.routledge.com/Routledge-Studies-in-Development-and-Society/book-series/SE0317

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38 The End of the Developmental State?
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40 Informal Urban Street Markets
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41 Cultures of Development
Vietnam, Brazil and the Unsung Vanguard of Prosperity
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42 The Role of Education in Enabling the Sustainable Development Agenda
Stephanie E.L. Bengtsson, Bilal Barakat and Raya Muttarak

43 The Gates Foundations Rise to Power
Private Authority in Global Politics
Adam Moe Fejerskov

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The Gates Foundations Rise
to Power

Private Authority in Global Politics

Adam Moe Fejerskov

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To Janni for distracting me towards more important things in life than academia, and to our little boy who will one day open this book and come to find that his dad is kind of a nerd.

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My story with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation began in 2013 when I became part of a large collaborative research project that studied how seven different organizations work with, and engage in, norms of gender equality and womens empowerment. My initial interest in the foundation was from a perspective of understanding its work on gender, but it soon expanded into trying to comprehend this intriguing organization more broadly. It was with this dual aim in mind that I approached foundation employees, grantees and partners, conducting more than 100 interviews over the course of three years, from 2014 to 2016. I spent nearly a year in the US (and the greatest part of that in Seattle, WA, home to the foundation), but also followed the foundations work around the world, visiting grantees as they came together in Istanbul, Turkey, and observing its work in India, both in the capital of New Delhi but also out in the fields on the outskirts of Bhubaneswar, in the state of Odisha. I am deeply thankful to all the current and former programme officers, advisors, fellows, directors, and grantees of the Gates Foundation without whose invaluable contributions this book would not have been possible. All of you know who you are. The same goes for the many other organizations and individuals who have provided inputs to the book. In particular, I owe my deepest gratitude to Lars Engberg-Pedersen and Peter Kragelund for steering me through three years of research on the Gates Foundation with vital encouragement and advice. Had it not been for Lars untiring support and collegiality through the years, I would not be where I am today, if at all in academia.

Many of the issues explored in the book revolve around intraorganizational processes and struggles, between individuals, units and departments. As such the endeavour has been sensitive, and all interviewees have been aware (and some worried) about the potential danger of exposing colleagues. To me, however, there is no objective of exposure or comparable drama in the book, with many of the sensitive organizational spectacles or developments likely being experienced in everyday organizational life across the world. Still, to gain as truthful an insight into the foundations work as possible, I protect my interviewees by securing their anonymity. Several names do appear throughout this book, but they belong to people who are to be seen as public figures, or who have allowed me to use their names. Throughout my interviewing, the intention has been to allow informants to elaborate at great length about the issues and processes discussed, allowing for as high a degree of information as possible, and many of the interviews were followed up by repeated talks in order to explore new aspects of the issues discussed. In particular, it was an explicit aim for me to combine formal meetings inside the foundations walls with more informal conversations and meetings, where employees felt safe discussing sensitive issues, away from work. That conversations could take place outside of work was even more eagerly suggested by my interviewees than by me, with many people insecure about discussing intimate work relations in their shared offices or in common rooms.