The World Bank and Education Policy in Colombia: A Comparative Analysis of the Effects of International Organizations’ Learning on Domestic Policy

Abstract What happens when influential international organizations change their beliefs about policy? Do they effectively transfer their learning? This paper answers these questions through a comparative historical analysis of the influence of the World Bank on secondary education policy in Colombia. Although the World Bank radically changed its ideas about secondary education and actively disseminated them in Colombia by reshaping its lending priorities and technical assistance, domestic increasing returns of previous foreign recommendations prevented the adoption of new World Bank’s lessons. This study shows that the influence of international organizations is substantially shaped by domestic politics.