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This chapter investigates the political manifestations of networks, particularly as they pertain to the governance of organisational and economic matters. The idea of ‘policy networks’ is examined and how they operate. Specifically, the chapter explores how the internal structure of decision-making is organised, much of which has a resonance outside of policy networks proper to address how networks more widely might operate. The chapter also lays out the principles and trends associated with the issue of how to place networks in a wider context of other socio-organisational mechanisms of management and regulation. Finally, the chapter opens up on the issues of power in political networks, something that pervades these forms of organisational entity just as it does hierarchies and markets. Networks of political power and authority are discussed, along with policy networks and the formation of public policy, multi-level governance, network forms of governance and game theory, and social capital.

Chapter 5 turns our attention beyond membership-based advocacy associations to the expansive set of “netroots infrastructure organizations” populating the landscape today. The chapter begins by evaluating the historical circumstances present during the development of these “netroots” political associations. Consecutive losses in several U.S. elections, along with grassroots partisan frustration over the Iraq War, culminated in the formation of the Democracy Alliance, a collaborative effort among progressive patron donors to better direct their donations and build new “political infrastructure.” The resulting infrastructure supports the new generation of political associations in a variety of ways and helps to flesh out our understanding of how new media has affected the organizational layer of American politics. The chapter includes profiles of five distinct forms of infrastructure: training/ideas (New Organizing Institute), fundraising technical support (ActBlue), for-profit technical support (Blue State Digital/National Field), progressive social networking (Living Liberally), and networked backchannel conversations (semiformal listservs like TownHouse and JournoList). The backchannel lists in particular demonstrate the more porous political networks that now constitute the American advocacy group systems.

This chapter focuses on political networks that help produce results from collaborative initiatives, as well as on a wide range of political entities which agree to work jointly to solve common problems. A number of high-level political personalities from these networks are engaged in continuous policy changes and implementation. These networks can rely on a number of implementation tools ranging from voluntary approaches to those that are regulated. The participants of such networks focus on formulating policy-level solutions, with policy strategies as the main tool to achieve the desired results. The chapter also identifies factors necessary to assess the contribution of political networks to produce the desired results.

This chapter returns to the wider connections between literary and political culture in the period. It shows that far from being the penniless hacks described in contemporary Tory satire, many Whig poets were the beneficiaries of a sophisticated system of patronage. An examination of the nature of this patronage reveals the economic and political networks behind Whig verse, and demonstrates the important ideological commitment to the systematic promotion of a Whig literary culture. The intention behind the extensive support of Whig poetry in this period was not just to secure the services of political propagandists, but to support a distinctively Whiggish cultural arena. The new Whig elite would become the guardians of a revitalized artistic culture, whose grandeur would reflect their authority and largesse, and the modern writer would play a vital part in the remodelling of cultural, political, and social spheres in the early 18th century.

This chapter looks at the changing parameters of party patronage in Ireland. There are good reasons to expect that party patronage would be extensive, because there is a culture of clientelism and the political system is usually thought of as lacking an ideological division. Though there is evidence of party patronage and that it is politically important, the extent of the patronage is comparatively limited. Furthermore, though the scope for patronage as a means of controlling policy has expanded in recent years with agencification, there is limited evidence that those who control patronage (primarily ministers) do so to control or observe policy. In fact the logic for most appointments seems to be the maintenance of personal networks, tempered by the need to avoid media flak and to prevent damaging mistakes.

In this chapter, we introduce the theory, situate the research within the literature, preview the results, and provide an overview for the rest of the book. We argue that individuals with varying social positions have political discussion networks that are composed differently, and as a consequence their discussion networks exert distinct effects on their political behavior. We assert that this book makes three central contributions: (1) expanding the scope of the political discussion network literature by providing a comparative analysis across ethnorace, nativity, and gender; (2) demonstrating how historical differences in partisanship, policy attitudes, and engagement are reflected within groups’ social networks; and (3) revealing how the social position of our respondents affects the impact that networks can have on their trust and efficacy in government, political knowledge, policy attitudes, and political and civic engagement patterns.

Chapter 6 examines the association among our network characteristics - partisan homogeneity, discussion frequency, and network size - and, civic engagement, self-reported political engagement, and validated voter turnout across our various social groups. Of course, we cannot causally distinguish between selection and social influence with our data. However, we uncover important associations nonetheless. We find that regardless of social position, across all groups, those who discuss politics more frequently are more politically engaged, but network size and partisan homogeneity are not uniformly associated with engagement. With regards to validated turnout, we observe that network size and discussion frequency are positively associated with voting for U.S.-born respondents, but none of the network characteristics are associated with voting among our foreign-born respondents.

The chapter assesses whether socially and politically networked households are more aware of a program’s components and the processes of decision-making, and whether such networking makes them more likely to vocalize their dissatisfaction when their entitlements are threatened. The links to social and political networks are significant in increasing a household’s access to information about an anti-poverty program, in increasing the monitoring of the program, and in helping them voice their dissatisfaction when program objectives are not met. In the empowerment framework, networks build a collective capability on the part of the vulnerable to make demands on the state. But networking alone is not enough to enable the poor to directly influence decision-making in a gram sabha. Our results highlight the importance of education in instilling not just civic values but also for enabling the vulnerable to learn about and monitor the functioning of specific anti-poverty programs

In this concluding chapter, we summarize our core findings and connect them to our broader argument. We discuss some of the limitations of this book with an eye toward future research. Our analyses reveal the wide-ranging potential explanatory power of political discussion networks for U.S. political behavior. At a minimum, our results show how focusing solely on the individual level as the main driver of political actions misses the important ways in which individuals interact with their social context. Such interactions have the potential to explain more fully patterns of political behavior and how that interaction is mediated by individuals’ experiences of marginalization and privilege.

We know from recent work in urban studies that the role of local government in administering cities has changed significantly in recent years. The provision of local public services has gradually been moving out of local government control, becoming the responsibility of networks of charities, volunteers and private organisations, which now have to work in partnership with local authorities to deliver metropolitan public services. This chapter explores the effects of this shift in urban governance on political practice by exploring ethnographically the experience of governing a city under such changing conditions. The analysis takes as its focus environmental policymaking and approaches this set of practices from an ethnographic and anthropological perspective. Building on this ethnography the chapter illustrates how the work of doing politics in Manchester hinges on a tension between a desire for inclusion in decision-making and a parallel resistance to incorporation into specific political networks and regimes.

This chapter demonstrates how women are deeply underrepresented in the field of political technology, especially in leadership roles. Women also do not have the same entrepreneurship opportunities in the field that men have. The barriers to the equal representation of women in the field of political tech are multifaceted and systemic. Women are underrepresented on campaigns because of the time constraints and network relationships that shape the hiring process, in addition to gendered assumptions about their qualifications. Women routinely cited that the goal of electing candidates outweighed any other considerations both in hiring and when women are in the room. While the lack of work–life balance on campaigns affects both men and women, it likely affects women disproportionately more given that they are often primary caregivers and have familial obligations that men do not have. Campaign hierarchies and bureaucracies often promote men as decision-makers and leaders, resulting in women’s voices often being absent from the corridors of power.

Conventional academic criticism of the works of Herman Melville does not include agreement that the author knew or was influenced by the contemporary and popular French writer Honoré de Balzac until very late in his life. However, the nature of the literary and technological networks of the mid-nineteenth century, along with an examination of important texts, suggests that Melville was not only seeking to rival the Frenchman as a competitor in book sales, but through study and guidance from his friend Nathaniel Hawthorne, attempting to infuse Balzac’s vision of unity of composition into a new American proto-Realist genre.

This chapter analyses the role and social characteristics of market forces in the health service system in India. It argues that while there are studies that have individually focused on financing, provisioning, drugs and technology, there is a need to take a systemic view of it. It also examines the rise of corporate sector health care through the example of Apollo hospitals and illustrates the complex interaction between regional, national, and international capital and the support from the political class to facilitate the corporate sector in health care. The role of the diasporic networks and their access and influence on policymaking during the last three decades has been highlighted.

This chapter focuses on the issue of neighborhood self-governance, including the pros and cons of self-determination and local control. Strong, self-regulated neighborhoods fit well within a self-help narrative about residents taking control of their own destinies. But the downside, as the debates reveal, is the loss of power and the potential for insularity, which can further deplete power. At the same time, higher-level authorities are often resistant to relinquishing control, putting added stress on the ability of neighborhoods to self-manage. With a stronger sense of neighborhood, the debate can be resolved through better connection to wider political networks as well as better application of innovative budgeting and governance procedures that are already in place but not widely in use. Resolution of the self-determination debate, then, capitalizes on existing procedures, regulations, and governing authority that exist at the neighborhood level but have not been activated by an explicit understanding of neighborhood.

This chapter analyzes the institutional framework, initial plans, and justifications for local electoral politics and modes of governance that compels members of the public to oriented themselves toward the emerging formal politics. It considers the structures of parties and political networks that take shape with identities and objectives that they organized themselves in order to structure the polity. The chapter also investigates how early patterns laid the ground for the electoral authoritarianism that took hold institutionally and political-culturally through the lenses of national policies, local governance, and individual-level linkages. It describes the Federated and Unfederated Malay States and two territories of the former Straits Settlements that formed the Malayan Union from 1946 to 1948, as the Federation of Malaya in 1948, then as a unified, independent state, Malaysia, in 1957. Singapore, Sarawak, and British North Borneo joined in 1963, only to have Singapore leave Malaysia two years later.