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New institutionalist approaches are inherently weak at accounting for institutional change. In this book, social network analysis is proposed as a key to institutional change. The social network perspective focuses emergent patterns of interpersonal interaction and the resulting ties of interpersonal trust. As a complement and contrast to both March and Olsen's influential new institutionalist "logic of appropriateness" and to economic models of organization, I propose a social network model of agency: the "logic of interpersonal trust". In my case study, I show how, during the 1989/1990 democratization of East Germany, pre-existing social network ties guided informal cooperation, recruitment and programmatic development in the reformation of the East German communist party SED into the PDS. With the help of interviews, auto-biographies and documents, I retrace the takeover of the SED as a process of social network entrepreneurship. I also show how feminist ideas and feminist candidates accessed the reforming PDS through bridges of interpersonal trust, resulting in a surprising programmatic turn to feminism and a quota for women. A separate chapter discusses the importance of social similarity for the formation of social network ties. A model of "the strength of similarity" is proposed, which helps explain the strengths as well as limited flexibility of informal structures, such as same-gender informal circles. The book also includes a brief critique of the feminist critique of democratic revolutions and of the determinist tendencies of feminist theory. Social network approaches should be relevant for example to rapid political transitions, such as the democratizations of former East Bloc countries, where old institutions succumbed to external pressures for reform. Where institutional structures are weaker, social network structures are likely to be more salient. Social network approaches may also be relevant to ongoing information age transformations, such as emerging forms of less hierarchical, more complex and informal inter-organizational networks.

The article proposes the analysis of institutional interaction between local government and nongovernmentalorganizations. The overview of different theoretical positions including institutional networkanalysis and trust concepts allow us creates a theoretical background for further institutional interactionanalysis. Exceptional attention is given to the sociological concept of trust and its functions, the creation oftrust culture in different political systems, especially in democracy. The implementation of project fundingmechanism on local government level is analyzed using methods of empirical survey. The data revealsfollowing problems of institutional interaction between local government and civic sector: lack of civicstandpoint, hierarchical non-flexibility, non-objectivity, individualization, inability of non-governmental sectorto represent their collective interests, the problems of leadership. The proper understanding of institutionalinteraction mechanism on the public policy level is important for the non-government organizations' leaders aswell as for local government representatives.

Social entities create institutional frameworks, i.e. internal systems of rules which govern (but do not control) the actions of their members. Both scientific communities and scientific organisations are social entities whose institutional frameworks include rules promoting internal collaboration. Based upon a diffuse reciprocity, members of the social entities are stimulated to collaborate with other members. The tendency to prefer other members as collaborators is accompanied by a relative exclusion of non-members from collaborations. Thus, in this way institutional frameworks create institutional boundaries hindering collaboration. In order to overcome institutional boundaries both within universities and between scientific communities, in Germany collaborative research centres (CRCs) were established. These are networks of research groups from different departments of one or more universities, i.e. from different organisations and different scientific communities. They contain their own institutional framework, which overlaps with the institutional frameworks of both organisations and scientific communities. Because the network's institutional framework includes rules promoting collaborations, these necessarily span the original institutional boundaries. A detailed discussion of these rules shows the functional equivalence of the different social entities' (communities, organisations and networks) institutional frameworks. ; Scientific communities und formale Organisationen wie Forschungsinsitute oder Universitäten bilden jeweils eigene Institutionensysteme aus. Diese Institutionensysteme fördern direkt oder vermittelt Kooperationen zwischen den Mitgliedern der communities bzw. Organisationen. Indem sie Kooperationen zwischen ihren Mitgliedern fördern, errichten sie aber zugleich institutionelle Schranken für die Kooperation mit Außenstehenden. Solche Kooperationen werden durch die Institutionensysteme meist nicht unterstützt und damit relativ erschwert. Die Mitglieder einer scientific community oder Organisation wählen deshalb tendenziell Kooperationspartner aus derselben community bzw. Organisation. Um solche institutionellen Schranken zu überwinden, hat die Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft das Förderprogramm 'Sonderforschungsbereiche' (SFB) etabliert. Dabei handelt es sich um Netzwerke von Forschungsgruppen, die aus verschiedenen Fachbereichen einer oder mehrerer Universitäten stammen. Die Sonderforschungsbereiche bilden ein eigenes Institutionensystem aus, das die der scientific communities und der Organisationen überlagert. Weil auch dieses Institutionensystem kooperationsfördernde Regeln enthält, werden innerhalb eines SFB solche Kooperationen gefördert, die die klassischen institutionellen Grenzen überschreiten. Eine Analyse der kooperationsfördernden Regeln von SFB zeigt, daß sie den in scientific communities und Organisationen entstehenden Regeln funktional äquivalent sind.

China's south-western province of Yunnan is a mountainous area of high biological and cultural diversity that was annexed into China relatively late in Chinese history. The province has lost over two thirds of its original forest cover and lost half of what remained in the last fifty years. Ethnic minorities make up about a third of the population of the province but predominate in forested areas. Chinese policy towards 'minority nationalities' at first recognized their right to self-determination but since liberation has oscillated between assimilationist and integrationist approaches. Despite strong central government control, the law grants them an important measure of cultural and institutional autonomy at the local level. Nationally, forest policy has been highly centralized and geared towards timber production. Quota driven overharvesting has depleted forests and led to serious soil erosion, local impoverishment, flooding and massive loss of life in the lowlands. While mass afforestation efforts have disappointed. Since 1998, the government has banned logging in Yunnan, allowing only a very restricted cut for domestic use. Imprudent natural resource use is linked to the doctrine of State ownership of all lands and forests and the imposed structure of village collectives. Since the late 1970s, the government has progressively devolved land and then forests to local farmers to manage and enjoy use rights to. Massive increases in agricultural production have resulted, but the lesser degree of autonomy granted farmers with respect to forest land, combined with the top-down quota system, inadequate supervision capacity, poor delineation of forests and the slower rate of return on investment have frustrated social forestry initiatives. Farmers' skepticism that devolved tenure would really give them rights over timber has been confirmed by the logging ban. At the same time, in Yunnan, many upland farmers are being obliged to plant trees on their higher fields, with the aim of limiting run-off. The simultaneous loss of grain for subsistence and income from timber has hit farmers hard. The losses have not been made up with subsidies and grain handouts. Local activists distinguish between the government's 'social forestry' and the 'community forestry' that has been promoted, since the late 1980s, by the Ford Foundation, international development assistance projects and the international networks, notably RECOFTC. Despite major advances in awareness raising, training, the development of forestry school courses and curricula, and despite numerous educational pilot projects, community forestry has not yet 'taken off' in the province. This can only come when the central government's policy changes. Laws restricting civil society organizations are quite strict in China, yet despite these limitations an incipient provincial level network has evolved promoting participatory approaches to development. Efforts to promote a national level community forestry network have been less successful. Although Yunnan has had a relatively limited experience with international community forestry networks, local actors provide highly insightful lessons and suggestions about how such networking should be improved. International networking is valued as a source of information and inspiration but should be made more interactive, locally driven and strategic. The main challenges now facing community forestry in Yunnan are achieving national policy reform, and building local capacity and awareness in both communities and forestry bureaux. Recent government moves to allow village level democracy and slim down the administration offer opportunities to give farmers greater initiative. Perhaps minority areas, where indigenous forest related knowledge is retained, and where more autonomy is, notionally, allowed, offer hopeful beginnings.

This concept paper examines the nature and role of social networks in the complex production and service relations of the contemporary globalizing political economy. As structural patterns of social interaction and relations among sets of actors or nodes, strategic networks are conceived as new organizational forms and as alternatives to institutional constructs such as bureaucratic hierarchies, rational or natural systems, democratic associations, governmental polities, and markets. The emergence and operation of networks are seen as instances of institutional transformation or extrainstitutional exchange, strategic alliance, and governance at the level of organizations as well as regional, national, and transnational political economies. Contemporary interactive information and telecommunications technology has significantly enhanced the effectiveness and innovativeness of informal, privatized, non-regulated and unaccountable social networks as alternatives to their institutional counterparts in production, research and development, marketing, and transnational, knowledgeintensive business services. ; Der Artikel analysiert die Art und Funktionsweise sozialer Netzwerke in den komplexen Produktions- und Dienstleistungsverhältnissen der gegenwärtig sich global entwickelnden politischen Ökonomie. Strategische Netzwerke werden begrifflich als strukturelle Muster sozialer Interaktionen und Beziehungen zwischen Akteuren oder Knotenpunkten erfasst und stellen neue organisatorische Formen dar, sowie Alternativen zu institutionellen Strukturen wie bürokratische Hierarchien, rationale oder natürliche Systeme, demokratische Verbände, Regierungsordnungen und Märkte. Die Entstehung und Funktionsweise von Netzwerken werden als Beispiele des Institutionenwandels gesehen sowie als ausser-institutionelle Formen des Tausches, strategischer Bündnisse, und der Steuerung auf organisatorischer Ebene wie auch auf der Ebene regionaler, nationaler, und transnationaler politischer Ökonomien. Die gegenwärtige Informations- und Kommunikationstechnik hat die Wirkungskraft und Innovationsfähigkeit informeller, privater, nicht-regulierter und unantastbarer sozialer Netzwerke als Alternativen zu ihrem institutionellen Spiegelbild in Produktion, Forschung und Entwicklung, Vertrieb und transnationalen, wissensintensiven, unternehmensorientierten Dienstleistungen bedeutend erhöht.

The question of third-party access to the networks has become central to the debate around the liberalisation of the European electricity markets due to the natural monopoly characteristic of the transmission network. The European Union?s electricity directive provides three institutional options for the organisation of network access: the single buyer procedure, the negotiated third-party access and the regulated third-party access. This paper analyses these regimes in a framework of an imperfect decision-making regulation authority which can commit errors when supervising the transmission tariffs. It will be shown that the equivalence of the systems required in the directive is usually not achieved. In addition, conditions for deciding between the three systems are derived under social welfare considerations. ; Bei der Liberalisierung der europäischen Elektrizitätsmärkte ist wegen der natürlichen Monopoleigenschaft des Übertragungsnetzes die Frage des Netzzugangs Dritter von zentraler Bedeutung. Die EU-Stromrichtline bietet drei institutionelle Alternativen zur Organisation des Netzzugangs an: Das Alleinkäufersystem, den regulierten und den verhandelten Netzzugang. Dieser Beitrag untersucht diese drei Netzzugangsregime im Kontext einer fehlerhaft entscheidenden Aufsichtsbehörde. Er kommt zu dem Ergebnis, daß die in der Richtlinie postulierte Ergebnisäquivalenz der Systeme in der Regel nicht erreicht wird. Darüberhinaus werden Kriterien für die Entscheidung zwischen den Alternativen unter Effizenzgesichtspunkten hergeleitet.

Local innovation networks have been considered to be particularly important to innovation and technological change and to the growth prospects of regions and cities in Germany. Accordingly, innovation is a process that results from various (economic and social) interactions of different institutions located in a given region. Consequently, when analysing the local (or regional) innovation system, one should not only investigate the (horizontal and vertical) relations among firms but also the contacts with universities and other research institutions. Furthermore, the role of government agencies and interest groups that provide financial support as well as commercial and technical information should also be taken into account in the context of the regional innovation system. However, the review of relevant theoretical and empirical investigations related to the German experience shows that such innovation and R&D cooperation networks appear to be less significant than expected. In particular those high-tech firms in small-sized German cities have a direct access to the international innovation network, which quite often has made a more crucial contribution to their business performances than the regional and national ones have done. In general various regional technology policy measures adopted in German states (provision of research infrastructure, establishment of technology centres, innovative SME support programmes, etc.) have been more successful in already economically better-off large cities but failed to establish a significant intra-technological cooperation among partners in the rather less-developed areas which lack sufficient know-how, a socio-cultural and institutional infrastructure and a certain degree of entrepreneurial tradition. Apat from offering a critical review of relevant theoretical and empirical research, this study introduces the present regional technology and R&D promotion policies in German states and examines the distinctive characteristics of the local innovation system, emphasising the experiences of two small cities, Landshut and Bochum.

The changing economic and social conditions of rural areas in Europe are characterised by variety of different development processes. An EU-funded international research project which has been conducted in collaboration with Scottish, Swedish, German and Greek research institutes focussed on the dynamics of rural areas (DORA). The research approach aimed to examine the quantitative and qualitative factors explaining the differences of economic performance (DEP) in selected rural regions of the four member states involved. Important variables of the investigation are the infrastructure equipment, the regional economic structure, the employment conditions and other socio-economic data as well as qualitative variables such as social capital in combination with local actor networks and institutional collaboration at the regional level. In this paper the role of social capital will be determined in quantitative and qualitative terms and in relation to other "soft" factors of rural development. The approach is characterised by a number of pair-wise comparisons of differing rural areas in terms of economic performance and based on exemplary results from the European Union research project DORA. After explaining the case study approach and clarifying the definition of social capital an operational conception of indicators for measuring of social capital will be presented with regard to regional-economic analysis. Statistical methods of locational conditions and differences of the socio-economic context are considered. Furthermore, expert interviews with regional actors as well as findings derived from postal business surveys serve as information bases for the analysis. The impact of social capital on regional institutions, politics processes and the differences of the economic dynamics is considered in each pair of case studies of the two examined regions in West and East Germany. From the comparison of the two regions the conclusion is derived that the regional differences regarding the amount and quality of social capital can contribute considerably to the explanation of differing development paths under similar context conditions and that the role of social capital could be more strongly taken into account with regard to impact assessment of regional policy.

This study analyzes the restructuring of a national economy by identifying the career pathways of its enterprises. This analysis is conducted in a setting strategically chosen as a case of rapid and profound economic transformation: the post-socialist Hungarian economy between 1988-2000. The goal of this study is to chart the multiple pathways of property transformation. Property pathways are conceptualized as the patterned sequences of change that firms undergo 1) in the composition of their ownership structure and 2) in their position within network structures of ties to other enterprises. These career pathways are neither unidirectional nor plotted in advance. The landscape and topography of the socioeconomic field are given shape and repeatedly transformed by the interaction of the multiple strategies of firms attempting to survive in the face of variable political, institutional, and market uncertainties. These different types of uncertainties will have different temporalities, and the study explores whether and how they increase or diminish in various periods. The authors develop and test specific hypotheses about how enterprise pathways along the compositional and positional property dimensions are related to the shifting contexts of these types of uncertainty. The core dataset for this study includes the complete ownership histories of approximately 1,800 of the largest enterprises in Hungary for a twelve year period, starting with the collapse of communism in 1989, recording each change in a company's top 25 owners on a monthly basis. Monthly entries for each enterprise also include changes in top management, boards of directors, major lines of product activity, raising or lowering of capital, and location of establishments and branch offices, as well as the dates of founding, mergers, bankruptcy, etc. Data on revenues, number of employees, and operating profit will be compiled from annual balance sheets. These rich data make it possible to map the life cycles of the business groups that are formed by network ties among enterprises, identifying not only when they arise, merge, or dissipate, but also the changing shapes of their network properties. To identify patterns of change, the study draws on sequence analysis, a research tool that makes possible the study of historical processes in an eventful way similar to historiography while retaining social scientific abstraction. Whereas sequence analysis has given us a perspective on careers as historical processes but has not been applied to business organizations, network analysis has been applied to business organizations but has not been done historically. The methodological innovation at the heart of this study is to combine the tools of sequence analysis and network analysis to yield a sequence analysis of changing network positions.

During 1999-2000, the illegal and unregulated logging of Indonesia's forests became the focus of critical attention. It has been estimated that logging outside the State legal regime produces approximately half of the total timber production from Indonesia's forests. In 2000, as Indonesia's forests continued to rapidly recede, the problem had become so critical that, without serious changes, the World Bank and other foreign donors considered withdrawing entirely from forestry sector projects in Indonesia. While on a national scale the extent of the problem is now understood, insufficient attention has been paid to how this 'informal sector' operates at the district level. The paper is based on research carried out in the district of South Aceh during 1996-1999, before and during the crisis that marked the end of the Suharto era. By considering the emergence of logging networks in this district, this paper examines the institutional arrangements associated with this phenomenon, explores how logging networks emerge, how they operate, and how they respond to economic and political changes as well as interventions by outside conservation agencies. Webs of political, economic and social exchanges have emerged around illegal logging, constituting institutionalised sets of relationships that operate in ways antithetical to State legal norms. Extra-legal logging generates revenue for local clientele networks and the district budget and offers impoverished villagers viable survival strategies, but threatens the ecological future of Indonesia's once vast forests. By considering the changes that most affected logging networks over this period, the paper concludes by discussing the conditions necessary for successful project interventions.

This dissertation studies the burden of international trade costs on trade between countries, and the contribution of two non-traditional factors to lowering these costs. It evaluates the size of overall border-related trade costs, and the extent to which their reduction can be achieved via regional economic integration. A central place in this discussion is attributed to non-traditional trade determinants, represented by country-specific institutions, and by transnational social and business networks. The latter furnish foreign contacts and information about potential partners and increase the security and contract enforcement in international transactions, which all translate in lower costs and reduced uncertainty of cross-border exchanges. This study is important not only for a more thorough understanding of a series of phenomena observed in international economics, but also for the development of specific economic policies assisting countries in achieving their long term objectives. The work presented in this thesis consists mainly of an empirical analysis of the above mentioned issues. But it also takes advantage of the recent theoretical advances in international trade literature. This thesis shows that there is room for non-traditional trade costs in explaining missing international trade. Trade potentials may actually have been underestimated in the literature, and trade creation associated with regional economic integration might be much larger than expected. This finding is illustrated in the particular case of trade between East and West European countries. Results presented in different chapters confirm the pro-trade effect of both institutions and transnational networks. The well-functioning of domestic and foreign institutions is a factor comparable in importance to foreign trade policies. Even after all tariff and non-tariff barriers are removed, institutional reforms can generate a large increase in international trade. Social networks promote trade not only via common ethnic, linguistic and other ties that connect their members, but also via information and tastes acquired from the consumption of foreign cultural goods. A particular form of business networks, home country associations established by immigrants in their host country, is studied in the last part of the dissertation. Migrant associations have a stronger effect on trade than social network ties, they shape foreign trade and affect decisions to invest abroad. ; La présente thèse étudie l'importance des coûts non-traditionnels liés à l'échange en mettant l'accent sur les institutions nationales et sur les réseaux transfrontaliers sociaux et d'affaires. Au-delà de la nécessité d'identifier les coûts non-traditionnels, la question se pose également de les quantifier afin de pouvoir estimer la création de commerce associée à leur réduction et de formuler des recommandations précises en termes de politique économique. Les institutions et les réseaux augmentent la sécurité et assurent l'application des clauses contractuelles dans les transactions internationales, fournissent des contacts et des informations sur les partenaires potentiels étrangers, fait qui implique des coûts liés à l'échange inférieurs et moins d'incertitude dans les échanges internationaux. On montre que les potentiels de commerce sont généralement sous-estimés dans la littérature : l'intégration économique régionale peut créer beaucoup plus de commerce que l'on estime traditionnellement, et même quand la réduction totale des barrières aux échanges est achevée. L'amélioration et l'harmonisation des cadres institutionnels peuvent générer autant de commerce international que la libéralisation commerciale. Les réseaux sociaux favorisent l'échange par l'intermédiaire de liens ethniques, linguistiques etc. communs, mais aussi du à l'information et aux préférences acquises par la consommation des biens culturels d'origine étrangère. Les réseaux d'affaires sont illustrés par des associations de migrants et ont un effet positif sur le commerce plus fort que celui des réseaux sociaux.

This article provides an overview of social capital in the area of political economy, breaking down research into the communitarian, network, institutional, and synergy approaches. There is also a brief discussion of methodology in social capital research, and how methodology in social capital can be highly problematic. Despite this, the article argues it is important to overcome methodological difficulty in light of the vast potential of understanding social capital in poverty eradication efforts.

International audience ; As far as the management of the power flows on a transmission network is concerned by externality, Transmission and System Operators (TSOs) are externality market designers, and so can be studied thanks to a modular analysis grounded on Wilson [2002], Brunekreeft et al. [2005] and Glachant et al. [2005]. Since TSOs are institutional entities, the design of each module that they implement are constrained by compatibility requirement or "weak institutional complementarity" (Pagano [1993], Aoki [2001]) from their governance structure. The governance structure of TSOs is set by transmission ownership unbundling, governmental energy policy and political economy. Our paper develops such a framework and such an argumentation. Then, although the economic theory specifies a unique arrangement – that we will call "ideal first-best TSO" – to manage efficiently a power transmission network, we can understand why there is such a diversity of TSO arrangements and of heterogeneous results among TSOs. Our comparison between the "ideal first-best TSO" and two reference TSOs, PJM and NGC concludes that some network management schemes may be inefficient compared to an "ideal first-best TSO". But these schemes may be relatively satisfactory regarding the institutional context that frames their design especially as regulation may limit inefficiency

International audience ; As far as the management of the power flows on a transmission network is concerned by externality, Transmission and System Operators (TSOs) are externality market designers, and so can be studied thanks to a modular analysis grounded on Wilson [2002], Brunekreeft et al. [2005] and Glachant et al. [2005]. Since TSOs are institutional entities, the design of each module that they implement are constrained by compatibility requirement or "weak institutional complementarity" (Pagano [1993], Aoki [2001]) from their governance structure. The governance structure of TSOs is set by transmission ownership unbundling, governmental energy policy and political economy. Our paper develops such a framework and such an argumentation. Then, although the economic theory specifies a unique arrangement – that we will call "ideal first-best TSO" – to manage efficiently a power transmission network, we can understand why there is such a diversity of TSO arrangements and of heterogeneous results among TSOs. Our comparison between the "ideal first-best TSO" and two reference TSOs, PJM and NGC concludes that some network management schemes may be inefficient compared to an "ideal first-best TSO". But these schemes may be relatively satisfactory regarding the institutional context that frames their design especially as regulation may limit inefficiency

Metadata only record ; In chapter 7, Moore et al. describe the development of the commune-level NRMAC providing the social infrastructure that is both adapted to the exigencies of recent governmental decentralization and compatible with customary governance structures at the village level. They argue that it is not sufficient to simply assemble a group of men and women representing various ethnic groups and occupational categories, but it is also necessary to develop each member's individual capacities (functional literacy, leadership skills, association management, knowledge of codes and laws, etc.) in order to stimulate mutual trust and network building (social capital formation) between villages and clans and to help them to define their mission. Of particular importance is training in conflict management to build individual self-confidence and to provide a credible and valued service in the eyes of villagers. ; ME (Management Entity)