LAUSR

Abstract Governments are coming to rely on a variety of new tools and mechanisms to enable collective action on behalf of societal goals and community interests. Many scholars have claimed that the boundaries between the state and civil society in economically advanced democracies are shifting unmistakably away from the state toward enlarged roles for both the non-profit and for-profit sectors in societal governance. Empirical evidence to support such claims is unconvincing, however. Based on an analysis of changes in patterns of governance of immigration, migrant education, and bilingual education over the past three decades in the United States and the European Union, a far more complex reality is found: patterns of change in governance in these three policy domains reflect multi-directional and path-dependent political dynamics. Moreover, patterns of change in the relative influence of the three sectors of society are, more often than not, driven by each sector’s pursuit of its own interests, resulting in varying roles for state institutions.