Global Policy and the Public Action of Private Philanthropy: The Open Society Foundation

Abstract

The Open Society Foundation (OSF) is a private operating and grant-making foundation that serves as the hub of the Soros foundations network, a group of autonomous national foundations around the world. Founded in 1993 by the billionaire philanthropist George Soros, and known as the Open Society Institute (OSI) until 2010, this collection of national foundations and autonomous organisations operate in more than 60 countries. The Foundation network funds and operates a range of initiatives to promote open societies by shaping national and international policies with knowledge and expertise. The Foundation is a mechanism for the international diffusion of expertise and ‘best practices’ to post-communist countries of Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) and the former Soviet Union (fSU) as well as other democratising nations. This chapter concentrates on ‘soft’ ideational diffusion and normative policy transfer. Doing so undermines notions of clear-cut boundaries between an independent philanthropic body in civil society and government, and highlights the intermeshing and mutual engagement in governance that comes with the OSF’s coalitions, partnerships and common policy dialogues.