Forming politicians, reforming education: philanthropy, think tanks, and metagovernance scaffolding

The relationship between philanthropic foundations, think tanks, and state reform has shifted considerably, as these organisations move beyond traditional policy influence toward the deliberate formation and placement of new political elites within governance spaces. This paper examines how The Lemann Foundation and the think tank Livres recruit, train, and support individuals who progressively occupy decision-making positions within Brazil’s National Congress, conceptualising this process as metagovernance scaffolding. Drawing on a network ethnography of Brazil’s education policy field, combining document analysis, semi-structured interviews, and social network analysis, we trace two connected stages. First, formative scaffolding with the production of ideologically aligned, networked policy elites through capacity‑building instruments. Second, reformative scaffolding with the collective coordination of those actors within legislative spaces to propose and enact education policy reform. We argue that these organisations do not merely influence policy from outside the state but actively construct the human and relational infrastructure through which heterarchical metagovernance arrangements are populated and ideologically oriented. The Brazilian case illuminates a broader mechanism through which private actors participate in state reform, not through direct pressure but through the patient, deliberate construction of scaffolding that shapes governance from within.