Political creativity : reconfiguring institutional order and change PDF
Preview Political creativity : reconfiguring institutional order and change
Political Creativity .................18439$ $$FM 07-30-1314:32:55 PS PAGEi This page intentionally left blank Political Creativity Reconfiguring Institutional Order and Change Edited by Gerald Berk, Dennis C. Galvan, and Victoria Hattam university of pennsylvania press philadelphia .................18439$ $$FM 07-30-1314:32:56 PS PAGEiii Copyright(cid:2)2013UniversityofPennsylvaniaPress Allrightsreserved. Exceptforbriefquotationsusedforpurposesofrevieworscholarlycitation, noneofthisbookmaybereproducedinanyformbyanymeans withoutwrittenpermissionfromthepublisher. Publishedby UniversityofPennsylvaniaPress Philadelphia,Pennsylvania19104-4112 www.upenn.edu/pennpress PrintedintheUnitedStatesofAmericaonacid-freepaper 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 LibraryofCongressCataloging-in-PublicationData Politicalcreativity:reconfiguringinstitutionalorderandchange/editedby GeraldBerk,DennisC.Galvan,andVictoriaHattam.—1sted. p.cm. Includesbibliographicalreferencesandindex. ISBN978-0-8122-4544-8(hardcover:alk.paper) 1.Politicalscience—Research—Methodology.2.Politicalsociology— Research—Methodology.3.Creativeability—Politicalaspects—Casestudies. 4.Socialinstitutions—Casestudies.5.Publicinstitutions—Casestudies. 6.Organizationalchange—Casestudies.I.Berk,Gerald.II.Galvan,DennisCharles. III.Hattam,VictoriaCharlotte. JA76.P592752014 320.01(cid:2)9—dc23 2013026521 .................18439$ $$FM 07-30-1314:32:56 PS PAGEiv Contents Introduction:BeyondDualistSocialScience:TheMangle ofOrderandChange 1 PartI.Relationality Chapter1.ProcessesofCreativeSyncretism:ExperientialOrigins ofInstitutionalOrderandChange GeraldBerkandDennisC.Galvan 29 Chapter2.EcologicalExplanation ChrisAnsell 55 Chapter3.GovernanceArchitecturesforLearning andSelf-RecompositioninChineseIndustrialUpgrading GaryHerrigel,VolkerWittke,andUlrichVoskamp 78 Chapter4.ReconfiguringIndustryStructure:Obamaand theRescueoftheAutoCompanies StephenAmberg 100 PartII.Assemblage Chapter5.AnimatingInstitutionalSkeletons:TheContributions ofSubalternResistancetotheReinforcementofLandBoards inBotswana AtoKwamenaOnoma 123 .................18439$ CNTS 10-15-1313:53:16 PS PAGEv vi Contents Chapter6.CreatingPoliticalStrategy,ControllingPoliticalWork: EdwardBernaysandtheEmergenceofthePoliticalConsultant AdamSheingate 146 Chapter7.AccidentalHegemony:HowtheSystemofNational AccountsBecameaGlobalInstitution YoshikoM.Herrera 167 Chapter8.TheFluidityofLaborPoliticsinPostcommunist Transitions:RethinkingtheNarrativeofRussianLaborQuiescence RudraSil 188 PartIII.Time Chapter9.FromBirminghamtoBaghdad:TheMicropoliticsof PartisanIdentification VictoriaHattamandJosephLowndes 211 Chapter10.TheTroublewithAmnesia:CollectiveMemoryand ColonialInjusticeintheUnitedStates KevinBruyneel 236 Chapter11.InterestintheAbsenceofArticulation:SmallBusiness andIslamistPartiesinAlgeria DeborahHarrold 258 Conclusion:AnInvitationtoPoliticalCreativity 281 Notes 301 ListofContributors 353 Index 359 Acknowledgments 373 .................18439$ CNTS 07-30-1314:33:00 PS PAGEvi Introduction Beyond Dualist Social Science The Mangle of Order and Change The game’s afoot in institutionalist research. As institutionalists grapple withchange,diversity,innovation,indeterminacy,creativity,andsurprising assemblages of institutional artifacts, some have come to question the implicitstructuralistfoundationsoftheirresearchandturnedelsewherefor help.Thecatalogisbigandgrowing.Amongothertraditions,institutional- istshaveturnedtosocialstudiesofscience,actiontheory,ecology,narrative knowing, poststructuralism, constructivism, postcolonialism, pragmatism, theoriesofentrepreneurship,religiousstudies,andeconomicanthropology. This volume assembles a group of political scientists, whose only obvious commonalityistheirrestlessnesswithstructuralismandtheircommitment toalternativeintellectualtraditionstoanimate theirresearch.Bygathering thisheterogeneousbodyofworktogether,wehopetoshiftthesealternative traditions from the marginsto the center of the discipline and in doing so advanceapositiveresearchagenda.Thecontributorsworkonawiderange of empirical problems—from unions in Russia, Islamist economics, and global supply chains to industrial policy, political consulting, and civil rights in the United States—and draw on many different theoretical tradi- tions to analyze the cases at hand. Despite our apparent differences, we share a common project: to reconstruct institutionalism so it can better inquire into the genuine ‘‘mangle,’’ as we call it, of human creativity, sur- prisingassemblages,andpoliticalpossibilitiesweseeinourresearch. Although we share the recent interest in institutional change, the work represented in this volume should not be confused with the recent efforts to theorize change, which retain the false duality of structure and agency.1 Whereas those projects seek to soften the distinction between institutional structureandhumanagencywithconceptslike‘‘layering’’or‘‘ambiguity,’’ .................18439$ INTR 07-30-1314:33:02 PS PAGE1 2 Introduction we work toward concepts that circumvent the distinction and direct researchtoward themutual constitutionofaction and contextin everyday practice. Where other projects catalogue the structural gaps in rules, roles, or routines, which enable agency, we investigate the political creativity through which people in plural settings experience and practice rules and roles.Wherethoseprojectstypologizemechanismsofinstitutionalchange, weprobethewaysinwhichorderandchangeareconstantlyintertwined. Wehaveshiftedourattentiontothesephenomenaandwaysofthinking not because we have an aesthetic or political preference for voluntary action, political fluidity, or creative possibility, but because we’ve found structuralisteffortstomakesenseofinstitutionaldiversityandchangeintri- guing, but ultimately dissatisfying.2 Although we appreciate the prolifera- tionofmechanismsofinstitutionalchange,weworrythatexistingaccounts remaindescriptiveandcumbersomeandendangertheprinciplesthatmade structuralistapproachestoinstitutionselegantanduseful.Althoughwealso acknowledgerecent effortstotheorize institutionalchange by appealingto actor interests fixed in structures beyond institutional borders, we worry thatthisturnunderminesakeyinstitutionalistinsight—namely,thatinsti- tutionsshapeinterests.Andalthoughweappreciatetheeffortstoacknowl- edge the ways that institutional constraints on action are ‘‘softened’’ by phenomena like ‘‘institutional drift,’’ ‘‘loose coupling’’ between parts, or ‘‘transposition’’ of functions, we worry that they leave the antinomy of structureandagency,whichhasconfoundedinstitutionalism, intact.3That is,theydolittletoovercomethewidespread,butoftenconfusing,observa- tion that it is impossible to know what actions to focus on without refer- encetoinstitutionalstructure,butinaworldofpluralinstitutions,multiple instruments,orculturaldisputesoverthemeaningofrules,itisimpossible toknowexactlywhichinstitutionalinstrumentsarerelevantwithoutrefer- ence toaction. Instead, the authors in thisvolume have founduseful ways to circumvent the increasingly unproductive distinctions between order and change, structure and agency, or institutions and interests. Doing so requires the elaboration of theoretical positions that refuse the relentless splittingofstructure,agency,andchange. PoliticalCreativity As editors, we have taken inductive license from the expansive theoretical roaming and the rich empirical research in this volume tosuggest that the .................18439$ INTR 07-30-1314:33:03 PS PAGE2 Introduction 3 lingering structure-agencydualismsinpoliticalsciencemightbeovercome by attending to political creativity, a concept intended to capture both the pervasiveness of change as well as the deeply embedded nature of social action. Politicalcreativityisat oncenot determinedbybackgroundcondi- tionsandyetconstitutedthroughextantsocialrelations.Institutionalrules androles,culturalheritageandhistoricalmemorysituateactorsincontexts, whichinformactionnotasguide,constraint,orscript,butastherawmate- rialforimprovisationandtransformation.Inthisvolume,actionisnotrote playing from sheet music, nor are improvisational riffs predictable from gaps in the score. Instead, we find actors who constantly mess with the score in unexpected and unauthorized ways, rearranging it with each per- formance.Thecreativityofsituatedactionisakindofrecomposition. What then of power and creative action? The turn to creativity by no means eclipses inequality and asymmetrical social relations. The question is not whether power is present, but rather where it is manifest, how it circulates, and how to study it. From a political creativity perspective, powerisbestunderstoodrelationallyassocialpracticesthroughwhichsub- jects and subjectivities, institutions and authority are established, chal- lenged, and reconfigured. Power does not inhere in formal conditions. Rather power is secured though the ongoing negotiation of people, places, andthingsintoprovisionalassemblagesthataccordmeaningtoposition.A finalaspectofpowerasapracticeneedstobementioned,namelythetem- poral disorder of things. Historical particularity is at once everything and nothing as elements are drawn both from the materials at hand and from temporally and spatially distant sources. Tracing this unruly process of political creation and attending to the ways in which new configurations privilege some relations while disadvantaging others takes us to the heart ofpoliticalchange. Attending to power as relational practice requires that we shift the analytic lens from identities, institutions, and material conditions, often assumed to structure political action, to focus instead on the interplay of politicalelementsovertime.Attendingtodynamicinteractionsiskey.Itis noteasytotrainone’seyeondynamic,fleetingmicroorpartialinteractions rather than stable roles, rules, and routines. It requires skills more fre- quently associated with historians, novelists, ethnographers, and psycho- therapiststhanthoseinthesocialsciences.Difficultasthisis,weavertitat our peril; without such skills we are likely to misread political situations. Joan Scott’s critique of E. P. Thompson’s Making of the English Working .................18439$ INTR 07-30-1314:33:03 PS PAGE3
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