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The role of network structure in shaping the regulatory scope and content of sustainability standards for biofuels is examined. A critical review of the literature on hybrid governance networks suggests the need to bring in network theory. Through a specific network analysis of the standards-setters, it is shown that not only does the institutional hybridity of the standards boards influence the regulatory scope of the standards, but the network centrality and specific topology in which standards-setters are embedded are equally important structural features of hybrid governance. These findings foreground the relevance of incorporating in the current attributional conception of hybridity a network element, taking seriously the role of network structure in shaping regulatory fields. Social Network Analysis as an analytical tool holds great potential for further research into the structural features of hybrid governance. Adapted from the source document.

DIIS Working Paper reviews a recent influential branch within the Social Studies of Finance literature which asserts that financial markets are embedded in economics rather than in soci-ety (as scholars of the New Economic Sociology would have it). Coming from actor-network theory, the literature contributes conceptually to an extended ontology of markets and agency and empirically to an improved understanding of the importance of economist's role in con-structing markets and assembling economic agency. It also draws attention to the staggering effects that material devices and technical 'details' can potentially have on the macrodynamics of financial markets. In some cases financial markets can even be performed by economics, that is, materialized in very close accordance with the economic models that describe them. From this insight they conclude that economics is a performative science and that the social sciences should consequently break down the Great (analytical) Divide between finance the-ory and financial markets. However, the review finds that the literature is marked by a methodological bias. The lit-erature works with the microsociological methods of actor-network theory and thus tends to deliver pragmatically adequate explanations of the unique local social orders observable in 'the financial laboratory'. This means that it has its primary focus on the mutual entangle-ments of 'universities' and 'markets', that its preferred protagonist's are the economist's and that its privileged object of analysis is economic technology. Its pragmatic outlook also gives it a preference for 'market success' rather than failure and it often exaggerates the capacity of economist's to perform markets. It tends to forget the role of politicians, political technolo-gies, macro actors such as the state and international organizations not to mention the global asymmetries connected with the political economy of financialized capitalism. Although the performativity tradition must be seen as a further analytical development of Foucaults knowl-edge-power nexus, in particular his concept of 'dispositif', its focus on studying the 'labora-tory' (situated social practices) disregards the historical paradigmatic forms of the 'archive' which also condition financial agency. A fruitful dialogue between the pragmatism of perfor-mativism and a historically oriented poststructuralism inspired by Foucaults dispositif analysis is called for in the future course of Social Studies of Finance.

Who controls how transnational issues are defined and treated? In recent decades professional coordination on a range of issues has been elevated to the transnational level. International organizations, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and firms all make efforts to control these issues. This volume shifts focus away from looking at organizations and zooms in on how professional networks exert control in transnational governance. It contributes to research on professions and expertise, policy entrepreneurship, normative emergence, and change. The book provides a framework for understanding how professionals and organizations interact, and uses it to investigate a range of transnational cases. The volume also deploys a strong emphasis on methodological strategies to reveal who controls transnational issues, including network, sequence, field, and ethnographic approaches. Bringing together scholars from economic sociology, international relations, and organization studies, the book integrates insights from across fields to reveal how professionals obtain and manage control over transnational issues.

Who controls how transnational issues are defined and treated? In recent decades professional coordination on a range of issues has been elevated to the transnational level. International organizations, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and firms all make efforts to control these issues. This volume shifts focus away from looking at organizations and zooms in on how professional networks exert control in transnational governance. It contributes to research on professions and expertise, policy entrepreneurship, normative emergence, and change. The book provides a framework for understanding how professionals and organizations interact, and uses it to investigate a range of transnational cases. The volume also deploys a strong emphasis on methodological strategies to reveal who controls transnational issues, including network, sequence, field, and ethnographic approaches. Bringing together scholars from economic sociology, international relations, and organization studies, the book integrates insights from across fields to reveal how professionals obtain and manage control over transnational issues

AbstractIn this framing article for the special issue we contrast the aims and ambitions of three core approaches to elites in transnational policy networks and highlight where they have productive overlaps. The core approaches employ three distinctive theoretical lenses in their investigations: fields, hegemony, and institutions. We discuss how these approaches trace elites in transnational policymaking and associated methods, such as network analysis, sequence analysis and field theory, which highlight different aspects of how elites in transnational policy networks operate. Most of the contributions are concerned with mapping out elite careers and why career trajectories matter for field and network positions in transnational policymaking. While the contributions share this in common, we highlight the different ways in which the approaches can be used to dissect the same issues. Our contributions include pieces on the Trump administration, the professional ecologies of transnational policy elites, the treatment of transboundary political problems, the characteristics of technocratic elites, the racial and gender composition of transnational elites, and professional competition over transnational policy issues.

AbstractThis article contributes to current debates on the potential and limitations of transnational environmental governance, addressing in particular the issue of how private and public regulation compete and/or reinforce each other – and with what results. One of the most influential approaches to emerge in recent years has been that of "orchestration." But while recent discussions have focused on a narrow interpretation of orchestration as intermediation, we argue that there is analytical traction in studying orchestration as a combination of directive and facilitative tools. We also argue that a social network analytical perspective on orchestration can improve our understanding of how governments and international organizations can shape transnational environmental governance. Through a case study of aviation, we provide two contributions to these debates: first, we propose four analytical factors that facilitate the possible emergence of orchestration (issue visibility, interest alignment, issue scope, and regulatory fragmentation and uncertainty); and second, we argue that orchestrators are more likely to succeed when they employ two strategies: (i) they use a combination of directive and facilitative instruments, including the provision of feasible incentives for industry actors to change their behavior, backed up by regulation or a credible regulatory threat; and (ii) they are robustly embedded in, and involved in the formation of, the relevant transnational networks of actors and institutions that provide the infrastructure of governance. © 2017 JohnWiley & Sons Australia, Ltd

An ongoing question for institutional theory is how organizing occurs transnationally, where institution building occurs in a highly ambiguous environment. This article suggests that at the core of transnational organizing is competition and coordination within professional and organizational networks over who controls issues. Transnational issues are commonly organized through professional battles over how issues are treated and what tasks are involved. These professional struggles are often more important than what organization has a formal mandate over an issue. We highlight how 'issue professionals' operate in two-level professional and organizational networks to control issues. This two-level network provides the context for action in which professionals do their institutional work. The two-level network carries information about professional incentives and also norms about how issues should be treated and governed by organizations. Using network and career sequences methods, we provide a case of transnational organizing through professionals who attempt issue control and network management on transnational environmental sustainability certification. The article questions how transnational organizing happens, and how we can best identify attempts at issue control.

Social scientists and historians writing on techniques of contemporary rule, particularly those influenced by post-Marxist paradigms such as governmentality, have become increasingly preoccupied by the expanding role of standardization and the subjection of an ever-expanding array of spheres of activity to inspection (or self-inspection), audit, and certification. In the course of their investigations, the elements of a common narrative are emerging. This links standardization, audit, and certification with neoliberalism and contraction of the state, on one hand, with a reconfiguration of everyday life in business, communication, and social provision on the other (see Power 1997; Brunsson and Jakobsen 2000; Strathern 2000; and Higgins and Larner 2010).

Abstract
Neoliberal economics has reshaped societies. How did this doctrine ascend? While existing explanations emphasize a variety of factors, one neglected aspect is intellectual rivalry within the US economics profession. Neoliberalism had to attain prestige against the grain of the intelligentsia prior to becoming a force to organize political power. Using qualitative and quantitative evidence, we examine key rivals in US economics from 1960 to 1985: the Chicago School of Economics, neoliberal pioneers and the 'Charles River Group' (Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology), the mainstream Keynesian stronghold. We identify socialization mechanisms from historical accounts, which suggest forms of social cohesion between elite professors and their students. We measure social cohesion and network structure from salient relations within and between generations, using a new a dataset focused on elite economics professors and their graduate students. What differentiated the Chicago School from Charles River was its fostering of social cohesion and its effective transmission of value orientations across generations.