Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-8bhkd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-05T04:07:46.892Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Brokering change: networks and entrepreneurs in international politics

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 July 2009

Stacie E. Goddard*
Affiliation:
Department of Political Science, Wellesley College, 233 Pendleton Hall East, Wellesley, MA, USA

Abstract

Political entrepreneurs reside at the core of international relations (IR) theory. Structures might constrain agents, but entrepreneurs can remake and transform these structures, contesting norms, shifting identities and creating space for significant political change. Despite this, IR theorists note that key questions about entrepreneurs remain under-theorized. Under what conditions are political entrepreneurs likely to emerge? Who is likely to succeed as an entrepreneur, and how do entrepreneurs produce structural change? I argue scholars could strengthen their answers to these questions by drawing from the growing program of social network theory. Networks influence entrepreneurship in three ways. First, networks provide certain actors – brokers – with resources to effect change. It is not an actor’s attributes or interests but her position, then, that enables entrepreneurial behavior. Second, networks create the conditions of entrepreneurship. While certain networks are extremely stable, others contain contradictions that allow entrepreneurs to emerge. Finally, network theory posits structural mechanisms – including mobilization, polarization, and yoking – to explain political change.

Type
Original Article
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2009

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Abbot, A. (1996), ‘Things of boundaries’, Social Research 62: 857862.Google Scholar
Adamson, F.B. (2005), ‘Globalisation, transnational political mobilisation, and networks of violence’, Cambridge Journal of International Affairs 18(1): 3149.Google Scholar
Adler, E. (1992), ‘The emergence of cooperation: national epistemic communities and the international evolution of the idea of nuclear arms control’, International Organization 46(1): 101145.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Adler, E.Haas, P.M. (1992), ‘Conclusion: epistemic communities, world order, and the creation of a reflective research program’, International Organization 46(1): 367390.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Archer, M. (1989), Culture and Agency: The Place of Culture in Social Theory, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Ashley, R. (1986), ‘The poverty of neorealism’, in R.O. Keohane (ed.), Neorealism and Its Critics, New York, USA: Columbia University Press, 255300.Google Scholar
Baguley, D. (2000), Napoleon III and his Regime: An Extravaganza, Baton Rouge: Louisiana State Press.Google Scholar
Barkin, J.S.Cronin, B. (1994), ‘The state and the nation: changing norms of sovereignty in international relations’, International Organization 48(1): 107130.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Barnett, M.N.Duvall, R. (2005), ‘Power in international relations’, International Organization 59: 3975.Google Scholar
Bearman, P. (1993), Relations into Rhetorics: Local Elite Structure in Norfolk, England, 1540–1640, New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.Google Scholar
Bourdieu, P. (1994), Language and Symbolic Power, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Bourdieu, P. (1990), Logic of Practice, Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Breuilly, J. (1996), The Formation of the First German Nation-State, 1800–1871, Studies in European History, London, UK: Macmillan.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bukovansky, M. (2002), Legitimacy and Power Politics: The American and French Revolutions in International Political Culture, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Burt, R.S. (2005), Brokerage and Closure: An Introduction to Social Capital, Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Burt, R.S. (1980), ‘Models of network structure’, Annual Review of Sociology 6: 79141.Google Scholar
Burt, R.S. (1976), ‘Positions in networks’, Social Forces 55(1): 93122.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Burt, R.S. (1987), ‘Social contagion and innovation: cohesion versus structural equivalence’, The American Journal of Sociology 92(6): 12871335.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Burt, R.S. (2004), ‘Structural holes and good ideas’, The American Journal of Sociology 110(2): 349399.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Burt, R.S. (1992), Structural Holes: The Social Structure of Competition, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Bush, J.W. (1967), Venetia Redeemed: Franco-Italian Relations 1864–1866, Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press.Google Scholar
Byman, D.L.Pollack, K. (2001), ‘Let us now praise great men: bringing the statesmen back in’, International Security 25(4): 107146.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Carpenter, R.C. (2007), ‘Setting the advocacy agenda: theorizing issue emergence and nonemergence in transnational advocacy networks’, International Studies Quarterly 51: 99120.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cederman, L.-E. (2003), ‘Endogenizing corporate identities: the next step in constructivist IR theory?’, European Journal of International Relations 9(1): 536.Google Scholar
Checkel, J.T. (1997), ‘International norms and domestic politics: bridging the rationalist–constructivist divide’, European Journal of International Relations 3(4): 473492.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Checkel, J.T. (1999), ‘Norms, institutions and national identity in contemporary Europe’, International Studies Quarterly 43(1): 83114.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Checkel, J.T. (1998), ‘The constructivist turn in international relations theory’, World Politics 50(2): 324348.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Checkel, J.T. (2001), ‘Why comply? Social learning and European identity change’, International Organization 55(3): 553588.Google Scholar
Chiles, T.H., Bluedron, A.C.Gupta, V.K. (2007), ‘Beyond creative destruction and entrepreneurial discovery: a radical Austrian approach to entrepreneurship’, Organization Studies 28: 467493.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Clark, C.W. (1934), Franz Joseph and Bismarck: The Diplomacy of Austria before the War of 1866, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Coleman, J. (1990), Foundations of Social Theory, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Coleman, J. (1988), ‘Social capital in the creation of human capital’, American Journal of Sociology 94: 95120.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dessler, D. (1989), ‘What’s at stake in the agent-structure debate’, International Organization 43(3): 441473.Google Scholar
DiMaggio, P. (1988), ‘Interest and agency in institutional theory’, in L. Zucker (ed.), Institutional Patterns and Culture, Cambridge, MA: Ballinger Publishing Company.Google Scholar
Dorpalen, A. (1948), ‘Emperor Frederick III and the German liberal movement’, The American Historical Review 54(1): 131.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Echard, W.E. (1983), Napoleon III and the Concert of Europe, Baton Rouge, LA: Louisiana State Press.Google Scholar
Elrod, R.B. (1976), ‘The concert of Europe: a fresh look at an international system’, World Politics 28(2): 159174.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Emirbayer, M. (1997), ‘Manifesto for a relational sociology’, American Journal of Sociology 103(2): 281317.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Emirbayer, M.Goodwin, J. (1994), ‘Network analysis, culture, and the problem of agency’, American Journal of Sociology 99(6): 11411154.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Evangelista, M. (1995), ‘The paradox of state strength: transnational relations, domestic structures, and security policy in Russia and the Soviet Union’, International Organization 49(1): 138.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fernandez, R.M.McAdam, D. (1988), ‘Social networks and social movements: multiorganizational fields and recruitment to Mississippi freedom summer’, Sociological Forum 3(3): 357382.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Finnemore, M. (1996), ‘Constructing norms of humanitarian intervention’, in P. Katzenstein (ed.), Culture of National Security, New York, USA: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Finnemore, M. (1993), ‘International organizations as teachers of norms: the United Nations educational, scientific, and cultural organization and science policy’, International Organization 47(4): 565597.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Finnemore, M.Sikkink, K. (1998), ‘International norm dynamics and political change’, International Organization 52(4): 887917.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gargiulo, M.Benassi, M. (2000), ‘Trapped in your own net? Network cohesion, structural holes, and the adaptation of social capital’, Organization Science 11(2): 183196.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Garud, R., Hardy, C.Maguire, S. (2007), ‘Institutional entrepreneurship as embedded agency: an introduction to the special issue’, Organization Studies 28: 957969.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Giddens, A. (1995), A Contemporary Critique of Historical Materialism, 2nd edn., Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goddard, S.E. (2009), ‘When Right makes Might’, International Security 33(3): 110142.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goddard, S.E. (2006), ‘Uncommon ground: indivisible territory and the politics of legitimacy’, International Organization 60(1): 3568.Google Scholar
Gould, R.V. (1991), ‘Multiple networks and mobilization in the Paris commune, 1871’, American Sociological Review 56(6): 716729.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Haas, E. (2004), The uniting of Europe: Political, Social, and Economical Forces, 1950–1957, South Bend, IN: University of Notre Dame Press.Google Scholar
Haas, P.M. (1989), ‘Do regimes matter? Epistemic communities and Mediterranean pollution control’, International Organization 43(3): 377403.Google Scholar
Haas, P.M. (1990), Saving the Mediterranean: The Politics of International Environmental Cooperation, New York, USA: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Hafner-Burton, E.Montgomery, A.H. (2006), ‘Power positions: international organizations, social networks, and conflict’, Journal of Conflict Resolution 50(1): 327.Google Scholar
Hallberg, C.W. (1955), Franz Joseph and Napoleon III 1852–1864: A Study of Austro-French Relations, New York, USA: Bookman Associates.Google Scholar
Hertslet, E. (1875), The Map of Europe by Treaty: Showing the Various Political and Territorial Changes which Have Taken Place Since the General Peace of 1814, London, UK: Buttersworths.Google Scholar
Jackson, P.T.Nexon, D. (1999), ‘Relations before states: substance, process, and the study of world politics’, European Journal of International Relations 5(3): 291332.Google Scholar
Keck, M.Sikkink, K. (1998), Activists Beyond Borders: Advocacy Networks in International Politics, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Kim, H.Bearman, P.S. (1997), ‘The structure and dynamics of movement participation’, American Sociological Review 62(1): 7092.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kissinger, H. (1964), A World Restored, New York, USA: Grosset and Dunlap.Google Scholar
Kniss, F. (1996), ‘Ideas and symbols as resources in intrareligious conflict: the case of American Mennonites’, Sociology of Religion 57(1): 723.Google Scholar
Knoke, D.Kuklinski, J.H. (1982), Network Analysis, Beverly Hills, CA: Sage.Google Scholar
Kratochwil, F.V. (1993), ‘The embarrassment of changes: neo-realism as the science of realpolitik without politics’, Review of International Studies 19(1): 6380.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Legro, J.W. (2005), Rethinking the World: Great Power Strategies and International Order, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Legro, J.W. (1994), ‘Military culture and inadvertent escalation in World War II’, International Security 18(4): 108142.Google Scholar
Legro, J.W. (2000), ‘Whence American internationalism’, International Organization 54(2): 253289.Google Scholar
Legro, J.W. (1997), ‘Which norms matter? Revisiting the ‘failure’ of internationalism’, International Organization 51(1): 3163.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lieberman, R.C. (2002), ‘Ideas, institutions, and political order: explaining political change’, The American Political Science Review 96(4): 697712.Google Scholar
MacDonald, P. (2009), ‘Is imperial rule obsolete? Assessing the barriers to overseas adventurism’, Security Studies 18(1): 79114.Google Scholar
MacDonald, P. (2007), Networks of Domination: The Social Foundations of Empire, Ph.D. Dissertation, Columbia University.Google Scholar
McAdam, D. (1986), ‘Recruitment to high-risk activism: the case of freedom summer’, The American Journal of Sociology 92(1): 6490.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McAdam, D.Paulsen, R. (1993), ‘Specifying the relationship between social ties and activism’, The American Journal of Sociology 99(3): 640667.Google Scholar
McAdam, D.Rucht, D. (1993), ‘The cross-national diffusion of movement ideas’, Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 528: 5674.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McAdam, D., Tarrow, S.Tilly, C. (2001), Dynamics of Contention, New York, USA: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McClean, P.D. (1998), ‘A frame analysis of favor seeking in the renassiance: agency, networks, and political culture’, The American Journal of Sociology 104(1): 5191.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mische, A.White, H. (1998), ‘Between conversation and switching: public switching dynamics across networks’, Social Research 65(3): 695724.Google Scholar
Mitzen, J. (2005), ‘Reading Habermas in anarchy: multilateral diplomacy and global public spheres’, American Political Science Review 99(3): 401417.Google Scholar
Moravcsik, A. (1999), ‘A new statecraft? Supranational entrepreneurs and international cooperation’, International Organization 53(2): 167306.Google Scholar
Mosse, W.E. (1958), The European Powers and the German Question, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Nexon, D. (2009), The Struggle for Power in Early Modern Europe: Religious Conflict, Dynastic Empires, and International Change, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Nexon, D.Wright, T. (2007), ‘What’s at stake in the American empire debate?’, American Political Science Review 101(2): 253271.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Osiander, A. (1994), The State System of Europe, 1640–1990: Peacemaking and the Conditions of International Stability, Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Padgett, J.F.Ansell, C.K. (1993), ‘Robust action and the rise of the Medici, 1400–1434’, The American Journal of Sociology 98(6): 12591319.Google Scholar
Pflanze, O. (1955), ‘Bismarck and German nationalism’, The American Historical Review 60(3): 548566.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pflanze, O. (1963), Bismarck and the Development of Germany, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Pouliot, V. (2008), ‘The logic of practicality: a theory of practice of security communities’, International Organization 62(2): 257288.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Powell, W.W.DiMaggio, P.J. (1991), The New Institutionalism in Organizational Analysis, Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Risse, T. (2000), ‘ “Let’s argue!”: communicative action in world politics’, International Organization 54(1): 139.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Risse-Kappen, T. (1994), ‘Ideas do not float freely: transnational coalitions, domestic structures, and the end of the Cold War’, International Organization 48(2): 185214.Google Scholar
Ritter, G. (1950), ‘Das Bismarckproblem’, Merkur 4: 657676.Google Scholar
Ruggie, J.G. (1986), ‘Continuity and transformation in the world polity: toward a neorealist synthesis’, in R.O. Keohane (ed.), Neorealism and Its Critics, New York, USA: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Schroeder, P.W. (1994), The Transformation of European Politics, 1763–1848, Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Schroeder, P.W. (1992), ‘Did the Vienna settlement rest on a balance of power’, The American Historical Review 97(3): 683706.Google Scholar
Schroeder, P.W. (1986), ‘The 19th century international system: changes in structure’, World Politics 39(1): 126.Google Scholar
Schroeder, P.W. (1993), ‘The transformation of politicial thinking, 1787–1848’, in R.L. Jervis and J.L. Snyder (eds), Coping with Complexity in the International System, Boulder, CO: Westview Press.Google Scholar
Schumpeter, J.H. (1962), Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy, New York, USA: Harper Perennial.Google Scholar
Schumpeter, J.H. (1934), The Theory of Economic Development, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Schweller, R. (2006), Unanswered Threats: Political Constraints on the Balance of Power, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Sewell, W.H. Jr. (1992), ‘A theory of structure: duality, agency, and transformation’, The American Journal of Sociology 98(1): 129.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sheehan, J. (1973), ‘Liberalism and society in Germany, 1815–48’, Journal of Modern History 45(4): 583604.Google Scholar
Sikkink, K. (1993), ‘Human rights, principled issue-networks, and sovereignty in Latin America’, International Organization 47(3): 411441.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Simmel, G. (1971), On Individuality and Social Forms, Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Simmel, G. (1990), The Philosophy of Money, New York, USA: Routledge.Google Scholar
Snow, D.A., Rochford, E.B. Jr., Worden, S.K.Benford, R.D. (1986), ‘Frame alignment processes, micromobilization, and movement participation’, American Sociological Review 51(4): 464481.Google Scholar
Snow, D.A., Zurcher, L.A. Jr.Ekland-Olson, S. (1980), ‘Social networks and social movements: a microstructural approach to differential recruitment’, American Sociological Review 45(5): 787801.Google Scholar
Spruyt, H. (1994), The Sovereign State and Its Competitors, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Steefel, L.D. (1930), ‘Bismarck’, The Journal of Modern History 2(1): 9495.Google Scholar
Steefel, L.D. (1932), Bismarck, the Hohenzollern Candidacy, and the Origins of the Franco-German War of 1870, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Tilly, C. (1998a), ‘Contentious conversation’, Social Research 653(3): 491510.Google Scholar
Tilly, C. (1998b), ‘Social movements and (all sorts of) other political interactions – local, national, and international – including identities’, Theory and Society 27(4): 453480.Google Scholar
Tucker, R.C. (1978), The Marx-Engels Reader, New York, USA: W.W. Norton.Google Scholar
Wellman, B. (1983), ‘Network analysis: some basic principles’, Sociological Theory 1: 155200.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wellman, B.Berkowitz, S.D. (1988), Social Structures: A Network Approach, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Wendt, A. (1999), Social Theory of International Politics, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Wendt, A. (1987), ‘The agent-structure problem in international relations’, International Organization 41(1): 335370.Google Scholar
White, H. (1996), ‘Network switchings and Bayesian forks: reconstructing the social and behavior sciences’, Social Research 62: 10351063.Google Scholar
Young, O.R. (1972), ‘Intermediaries: additional thoughts on third parties’, The Journal of Conflict Resolution 16(1): 5165.Google Scholar
Young, O.R. (1991), ‘Political leadership and regime formation: on the development of institutions in international society’, International Organization 45(3): 281303.Google Scholar
Zelizar, V. (1997), The Social Meaning of Money, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Zelizar, V. (1989), ‘The social meaning of money: special monies’, American Journal of Sociology 95(2): 342377.Google Scholar