Power, Agency and the cross national diffusion of Ideas and Practices

1. Power, Agency and the cross national diffusion of Ideas and Practices Michal Frenkel The Hebrew University of Jerusalem Michalfr@mscc.huji.ac.il

2. Point of Departure • With the introduction of field theory (DiMaggio 1988, Fligstein 1997, 2001), power and agency are getting better theorized within the neo-institutional approach. This is especially true when it comes to the processes of institutionalization, the emergence of new fields and even the diffusion of practices within national boundaries (Methodological Nationalism – the nation state as a unity of analysis). • Recently, more attention is also given to power in cross national diffusion in studies looking at the role of coercive isomorphism in the diffusion of state level economic policies (See Henisz et. al. 2005 and the coming issue of International Organizations). In these studies, the world itself, rather than the nation state, is understood as a unified field of power (Methodological Globalism).

3. Yet, even in these latter studies, power is narrowly defined in dependency terms, leaving little room for agency. Moreover, the interplay of power dynamics at the global and local levels remains relatively unexplored (Methodological Glocalism). • This is true especially in the North American literature and in papers published in leading US journals. As I shall argue later on, the fact that European studies of the importance of power and agency in cross national diffusion are hardly cited and have very little impact on the field, is in itself an example of the importance of geopolitical power relations in the institutionalization and diffusion of ideas.

4. Purposes 1. To draw on examples from my own work as well as from the work of other (mostly) non- American neo institutionalists to highlight the moments along the process of cross-national diffusion, in which power and agency play a crucial part. 2. To introduce the notion of the dynamics of overlapping fields as way of taking field theory to the global level and simultaneously account for both national and geopolitical power dynamics and the relations between them .

5. The NI Perspective on Cross -National Diffusion in a Nutshell 2.1. carried across borders by professionals and experts who are part of a consensus- based “epistemic community” • Institutionalization = Social construction of a rationalized myth/ a taken-for- granted and universally applicable logic of action • (Meyer and Rowan 1977, Meyer at al. 1997) 4. Isomorphism – the emergence of a homogenized world Society 3. (Uncontested) reconstruction of the taken- for-granted in the target society (Strang and Meyer 1993, Drori et al 2003) 2.2. Turned into a policy adopted by International organizations and promoted in target societies. (Boli and Thomas 1999, Henisz et al 2005. Berkpvitch 1999)

6. 1. Geopolitical Hierarchies and the Social Construction of Rationalized Myths • In NIT the institutionalization of ideas and practices is often attributed to the abstract authority of "science“. Those practices that get institutionalized and diffused are those which have gained scientific and professional legitimacy. The emergence of institutionalized models in the world center is explained in a modernization theory terms. This is where science and professionalism are most developed. • Thus, with few exceptions, little attention is given to the role of the Geopolitical power structure and the West-Rest divide in determining where in the global system a new practice can earn the status of a rationalized myth. In other words: How andto what extent do structural positions occupied by states and other international entities in the geopolitical field of power affect the institutionalization of rationalized myths and their global diffusion?

7. I argue that without an understanding of power dynamics in the geopolitical field it is difficult to explain why scientifically legitimized and successful practices such as the Swedish translation of Socio-technique, or the Yugoslavian method of industrial democracy have never turned into taken-for-granted rationalized myths and traveled across borders, while controversial models such as scientific management have. In my own work with Yehouda Shenhav entitled “From Binarism Back to Hybridity” (2006), we touch upon this question. We examine the effect of the colonial encounter on the canonization of management and organization studies as well as on the canon's boundaries. We demonstrate that the OMT canon's self-identification as Western – which constitutes an important foundation for NIT’s conceptualization of rationalized myths - is clearly based on a system of omissions and exclusions. While many canonical ideas and practices emerged in the context of slavery and colonialism, only those ideas and practices which were successfully disassociated from that non purely Western origin were canonized and could have diffused.

8. 2.1Power and the exportation of the taken-for-granted:The epistemic Communities argument revisited • In NIT, naive use of the concept. global consensus and flat hierarchies within these international networks of experts are uncritically presumed (Hass 1992). • Experts and professionals are “conduits of knowledge.” They Have no agency and power beyond the one attributed to science and professionalism (Strang and Meyer 1994).

9. Bringing power back in • Epistemic communities can themselves be understood as “fields” in which ones’ subject position affects her ability to shape the taken-for-granted. Epistemic communities are always hierarchical, and like the rest of the world they have centers and peripheries that are usually in correspondence with the geopolitical ones. Through funding of research, academic institutions and international fellowships, global superpowers may affect the taken-for-granted in a global epistemic community or lead to the marginalization of those members who do not adhere to the consensus. Moreover • Empirical findings, especially in qualitative studies, show that in the social sciences, even within an epistemic community there is at least some understanding of the political embeddedness of the theories they apply and the political transformation the introduction of such models may generate. In my own field of studies, Israel in the era of coordinated economy, international and local experts were fully aware of the political consequences the introduction of the individualistic and differentiating scientific management may have in the intensification of market economy (Frenkel, 2005 see also Guillen 1994, Djelic 1998).

10. A field perspective on Epistemic Communities • Field theory allows us to simultaneously examine the structure of power relations within a field and the ways in which actors occupying these structural positions draw on different repertoires available to them in pursuing what they construct as their interest at a certain moment. • It reminds us that there is always a repertoire of legitimate concepts and practices upon which foreign and local experts can draw rather than a single Rational form or a taken-for-granted (See Dobbin 1994). • Thus, foreign and local experts should be understood as taking an active, creative and strategic roles in choosing the “right” idea, translating ideas and practices, promoting or rejecting them. Socially constructed professional and political interests both at the academic and the state politics levels shape the practices they advance and the social significance these practices assume when adopted in other societies.

11. My studies of Israel show that in a cross-national context, the ability of an expert to advance a specific idea depends on his subject position in both the global field of science or management, and the local field of power in the target society. • In Israel, only those experts who were seen as affiliated with global leading institutions and At the same time were able to ally themselves with the local power elite could have advanced their imported professional agenda

12. 2.2 From international Organizations to Superpowers • While NIT scholars stress the role of International organizations as if those are interest-free promoters of global democracy, prosperity and world peace, European scholars have stressed the role of superpowers such as the US in the cold war era, in imposing certain models of management upon European societies to make sure they associate themselves with the “right” pole (Djelic 1998; Kipping and Bjarnar 1998). • In my own work (with Yehouda Shenhav, 2003) we compare the imposition of administrative practices by the British colonial authorities in pre-state Israel with that of the US aid agencies after statehood and show how this tendency of the global superpowers to introduce certain administrative and managerial practices as part of their reinforcement and legitimization of their geopolitical superiority is rooted in the colonial epistemology. Like Djelic (1998) we show that the export of practices is a conscious political move.

13. 3. The politics of Importation and Translation. Moving from the Geopolitical to the local field of power • Up until now we discussed the “production/exporting side” of the equation, but power and agency play a major role in the consumption side as well. • Guillen (1994/2001) Djelic (1998) and several others alert us to the active role elites and other social agents are playing in importing ideas that serve their constituted interests. In my “politics of translation” (2005), I show how power relations in Israel’s field of state-level politics affected weather ideas and practices presented by foreign experts gained legitimacy in the local context. I also Show how these ideas were translated to suit the constituted interests of political actors such as the state, the national labor union and the dominant labor party.

14. 4. From World Society to overlapping fields Dynamics • Thus, while NIT studies of the cross-national diffusion stress as their bottom line global Homogenization and a growing international consensus over basic values and taken-for-granted practices, adding power and agency to the equation leads us to look for inconsistencies, resistance and, in NIT terms, striking de-coupling of form and content. • Social construction of reality expresses itself not only in the way certain practices become-taken for-granted, but also in the way historically constituted actors struggle over the construction of such taken-for-granted institutions.

15. The Overlapping Fields Schema

16. My concern • In line with Haveman’s (2000) critique of the over inclusionary tendency of NIT. I wonder if, in the introduction of power and agency in the way I just did, we do not actually build an alternative approach that reject some of the most important tenets of this influential approach? Are we going too far in expanding NIT?