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Refugee crises are one of the grand challenges of the 21st century. Despite the theoretical importance attached to value created for beneficiaries in the partnership literature, research tends to focus on internal processes and value created for partners and partnerships, leading to widespread calls to further specify the value created by partnerships for beneficiaries. Applying an analytical framework from the value creation and social impact literatures, we report on a study of multiple social partnerships of a nongovernmental organization in the refugee issue field. Our results demonstrate that frames of refugees held by partners and in partnerships' implementation contexts shape the value creation activities undertaken for beneficiaries, and determine whether value is created and what types of value. The dual contribution of this article comprises a rare empirical study of value creation activities for beneficiaries (here, refugees) and theorization of how and when implementation context affects value creation by partnerships. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, we theorise global financing partnerships as a 'space between fields' that is generated and structured by the relationships between the actors mobilised into partnership boards from different fields. We investigate the structuring of the space of partnerships through a formal network analysis of a new dataset of 188 board members of 10 global financing partnerships across climate change, education, health and nutrition. Individual board members are analysed with reference to their home organisation and sector, the boards on which they serve, and salient issue areas. Centrality and ERGM analyses reveal that, in contrast to the policy narrative of inclusive and egalitarian partnering, donors (from states, international organisations and private sector) are systematically privileged in the structuring of this partnership space. We identify network mechanisms through which systematic biases in partnership relations perpetuate existing hierarchies, and introduce the concept of 'relational practices' that could counter these mechanisms. Combining a theorisation of partnerships as spaces between fields with network concepts provides a distinct theoretical basis for elucidating the structuring of partnership spaces at the macro-level, through the analysis of individuals' connections at the micro-level and inter-organisational ties at the meso-level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many scholars, policy makers and practitioners associate new, networked forms of collaboration and governance with positive attributes such as speed, flexibility, adaptability and 'flatness'. This article contrasts the assumptions that networks essentially moderate external asymmetries of power with the network theoretical view that networks may amplify existing hierarchies. The case study network explored supports the network theoretical view that existing power relations may be increased when a multistakeholder partnership network is established. The use of Social Network Analysis facilitates the comparison of the structures and relationships into which global policy actors are organised (the formal network) with the relationships and relational structures into which they choose to organise themselves (informal network). In the conclusions, I introduce the practice of network rewiring that could overcome the network mechanisms that amplify existing power relations. Further research is required that adds more case study evidence in order to raise (and begin to answer) questions that will give a wider view of the social structuring of power in partnership networks in international development, such as those referred to in the recently-adopted Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]