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A Political-Cultural Approach to the Problem of Strategic Action*

Neil Fligstein and Doug McAdam

Departments of Sociology

University of California University of Arizona

Berkeley, Ca. Tucson, Az.

January 1995

* The authorship of this paper is jointly shared. The order of the authors is alphabetical. This paper is a revision of

paper originally presented for the Annual Meetings of the American Sociological Association in Washington, D.C.,

August 1990. We would like to thank Elisabeth Clemens, Edgar Kiser, John Meyer, Woody Powell, Fritz Scharpf, Bill

Sewell, Jr., Art Stinchcombe, Harrison White and individuals who were at colloquia given at Northwestern University,

the University of Arizona, the University of California-Santa Barbara and the Asolimar Conference in April, 1992 for

comments. Neil Fligstein would also like to thank the Max Planck Institute in Kln for support given to him during

a revision of this draft.

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Introduction

The question of the emergence of institutions (both political and economic) has re-appeared across the social

sciences (Meyer and Rowan, 1978; Powell and DiMaggio, 1991; Scott and Meyer, 1994; Hall, 1986; 1989; Skocpol,

1985; March and Olsen, 1989; North, 1990; Wiliamson, 1985; Krasner, 1988; Shepsle, 1989). In sociology, the most

prominent part of this revival is in the field of organizational sociology (see the essays in DiMaggio and Powell, 1991).

Here, scholars are concerned with the origin, spread, and stability of new organizational forms. The sociological

theories view this process of institutionalization as the spread and maintenance of new meanings, where these

meanings are "taken for granted".

One major problem of the sociological approaches is a lack of a theory of agency and politics. DiMaggio (1987)

has tried to rectify this by raising the question of the role of institutional entrepreneurs in the creation of new

institutions. Institutional theory in political science and economics, on the other hand, is almost entirely focussed on

the problem of agency. Economic theories, used in both economics and political science, are based on rational actor

models that argue that actors pursue their interests and if joint choice sets around issues exist for important actors, they

will produce institutions.

Within political science, there are disagreements about the adequacy of rational actor models to explain political

institution building processes (Krasner, 1988; 1991; Hall, 1986; Steinmo, et. al., 1992; March and Olsen, 1989). One

set of arguments suggest that preexisting organizations and institutions both constrain and offer opportunities for the

types of new institutions that can be formed. Another questions whether or not the existence of self interested rational

actors with fixed preferences can really account for institution building moments. Here, arguments are often made to

suggest that institutional entrepreneurs help produce new collective identities and in doing so create new interests.

The purpose of this paper is to enter this debate from the sociological side and propose a way of injecting a theory

of agency and politics into the sociological theories of the "new institutionalism". To do this, requires some careful

conceptualization about it means for social interaction to be "institutionalized". Our view is that one must propose how

social arenas, what we call strategic action fields, come into existence, are maintained, and transformed. We call our

perspective a political-cultural approach. Our view is political in two ways. First, we see the crystallization of rules in

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strategic action fields and their subsequent operation as the result of constant political contestation that serve to

construct rules, interests, and the distribution of resources. Second, we argue that the state directly or indirectly effects

the construction of all such fields. The view we propose is cultural in two senses as well. Fields are viewed as socially

constructed and once in place, organized around local rules of action and conceptions of membership. This produces

a view of society as a society of fields densely connected in myriad fashion. A cultural conception of fields also

requires a conception of action, whereby one specifies how strategic actors behave in order to create and manipulate

cultural symbols.

We think that the elements of such a theory can be found in the insights from systematic empirical work in such

fields as organizational sociology (Chandler, 1962; 1978; Fligstein, 1987; 1990; Zald, 1973; Abbott, 1988; Pfeffer,

1981), social movements and revolutions (Gamson, 1975; Goldstone, 1991; McAdam, 1982; 1988; Tarrow, 1989),

the sociology of culture (Griswold, 1984; Swidler, 1986), historical sociology (Tilly, 1978; 1984), and studies of state

dynamics (Stark and Nee, 1989; Riker, 1987; Laumann and Knoke, 1988; March and Olsen, 1984; Dobbin, 1994).

Our basic argument is that there are deep similarities in the social process that generates institution building across

these disparate settings. We try and capture these similarities theoretically by drawing on the elements of a number of

these theories. Organizational theory, with its concern for the construction of organizational fields, offers good leads

on how to think about the social construction of strategic action fields. Social movements are forms of collective

action oriented towards creating new social space. Social movement theory, thus, can be used to understand the

fluidity that occurs in the formation and transformation of strategic action fields. Institutionalization projects have

often occurred in and around states. Social movements orient themselves to states and market building is inherently

part of the modern state building project. Theories of state formation and the creation of politics and economies

contain these insights. Finally, the problem of culture enters discussion because actors have to construct new social

worlds. To do so, they have to have the requisite social skill and an ability to manipulate cultural elements. In essence,

the concept of an institutional entrepreneur needs to be theorized. The theoretical discussion that follows contains

five parts. First, we discuss how we conceive of strategic action and how actors with "social skill" operate. Then, we

try and define the social worlds in which we believe most important forms of strategic action take place. We consider

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the dynamics of the formation, stability, and transformation of social worlds. We follow this theoretical discussion

with a consideration of how this approach fits into the substantive literatures on organizations, social movements, and

political sociology. Finally, we return to the question of institutions.

Strategic Action and Social Skill

It is useful to begin our discussion by considering a distinctly sociological view of action. One innovation we

propose is to provide a microfoundation that is based in current thinking in sociology on how actors behave that is

different from the rational actor model. There are times when actors do behave as rational choice theories suggest; ie.

their interests are fixed and their behavior can be predicted from those interests. But, a complementary approach to

understanding strategic action can be considered as well. The concept of social skill refers to a given actor's ability to

motivate cooperation in other actors by providing those actors with common meanings and identities in which actions

can be undertaken and justified.

Strategic action is the attempt by social actors to create and maintain stable social worlds. This involves the

creation of rules to which disparate groups can adhere. In settled times, it involves the reproduction of a given order.

In this process, groups' interests and identities are created. To find these rules, actors must have a larger conception

of the world (Swidler, 1986). These conceptions are world views that are cultural frames or templates that define what

actions are legitimate and which outcomes are most desired.

The social world is a murky place, open to interpretation. The world view of an individual reduces that murkiness

by providing the person with a simplifying analytic framework that causes him/her to pay attention to certain features

of their environments, ignore others, and proscribe action consistent with their world view. Two persons who have

different world views will observe the same situation and draw different conclusions about what the causal factors

operating in the situation are and how to go about applying their knowledge to achieve their ends. This is why

understanding world views and the conceptions of strategic action they embed is so important. In order to predict how

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actors will respond to situations, it is necessary to know how they will conceptualize cognitive input and what courses

of action will make sense to them.

Strategic action is about control in a given context (White, 1993; Padgett and Ansell, 1993). The creation of

identities, political coalitions, and interests is to promote the control of actors vis a vis other actors. But, the ability to

find such agreements and enforce them requires that strategic actors be able to "get outside of their own heads" and

work to find some collective definition of interest.

Put another way, our definition of social skill highlights how certain individuals possess a highly developed

cognitive capacity for reading people and environments, framing lines of action, and mobilizing people in the service

of these action "frames." These frames involve understandings that offer other actors identities. They must resonate

with varying groups and are open to interpretation. i To discover and propagate these frames is inherently a social skill,

one that underscores the "cultural" or "constructed" dimension of social action. We assume that this set of skills is

distributed (perhaps normally) across the population. Thus, it may be that the distribution of skill across a given set

of collective actors is more or less random.

In stable social worlds, skilled strategic actors help to produce and reproduce a status quo (Sewell, 1990). They are

aided by a collective set of meanings shared by other actors in which those actors identities and interests are defined.ii

It is also the case that in "institutionalized" social worlds, meanings are "taken for granted" and actions are readily

framed against those meanings. In uninstitutionalized social space, the task for skilled strategic actors is somewhat

different. Skilled actors can become "institutional entrepreneurs" (DiMaggio, 1989). Here, their ability to help create

and maintain collective identities comes to the fore and in unorganized or unstable strategic action fields, these skills

are at the greatest premium.iii

By emphasizing the cognitive, empathetic, communicative dimensions of social skill, we hope to underscore

that actors who undertake strategic action must be able to use whatever perspective they have developed in an

intersubjective enough fashion to arrive at an account that allows positive action to occur. This kind of skill requires

that actors have the ability to transcend their own individual and group's narrow self-interest, formulate the problem

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of the multiple group interest, and thereby be able to mobilize sufficient support for a certain shared world view (Mead,

1934).

This is the point that most rational actor models miss: actors have to operate in the context of other actors and sets

of groups or organizations and have to allow their interests to be defined in the course of interaction. This is one

reason why it is difficult to read interests from position in fluid social situations. If skilled strategic actors build

coalitions, then their interests will be formed in the political process by which this occurs. This ability to identify with

the other implies that strategic actors will also be quite attuned to the possibilities for action in their external

environments. Good strategic actors take the opportunities that strategic action fields offer.iv

A Theory of Strategic Action Fields

Our perspective on strategic action requires a view of the context in which that action occurs. Action takes

place either within or between organizations or groups. It has become commonplace to say that society is comprised

of a multitude of overlapping organizations or groups (Perrow, 1988). But to push this notion beyond description

requires that we develop some conceptions of social relations within and between collectivities. Toward that end we

introduce the concepts of strategic action fields, conceptions of control, incumbents and challengers, and discuss the

role of the state in shaping the context in which action occurs.

Strategic action fields are socially constructed arenas within which groups with differing resource

endowments vie for advantage. The term "strategic action field" calls to mind the concept of "organizational field"

(DiMaggio and Powell, 1983; Fligstein, 1990). Like the latter term, the concept of strategic action field is designed

to capture the socially constructed, internally self-referential, negotiated nature of the arenas within which strategic

action takes place. Sometimes these arenas map neatly onto the more static structural concepts familiar in sociology

such as "industry," or "social movement". So, for example, one can speak of a local environmental policy field

comprised of governmental bodies, "social movement locals" (McCarthy and Britt, 1991), various citizen groups,

trade associations and developers.

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The above example helps account for our preference for the term "strategic action field" (or SAF) over the

concept of "organizational field." For one thing, some of the relevant actors in the field--ad hoc citizen groups, for

example--are not formal organizations at all. More importantly, some of the formal organizations that are a part of the

field are also likely to be SAFs in their own right. So in the above example, one could easily imagine the local City

Planning and Development Office being the site of considerable struggle, with various divisions and departments

competing for influence in shaping the policies coming out of the Office.

The possibility for collective strategic action in modern societies is endless. It is useful to define a strategic

action field as a social space where two or more groups make claims to engage in collective strategic action.v As a

result, these groups or organizations are forced to recognize and to orient their actions to one another, as well as to any

other "outsiders" on whom the fate of the field may depend. We call these SAFs unorganized or emergent fields.

The first order of business in unorganized fields is to fashion a stable definition of the situation and a set of

"rules" routinizing field relations, ie. to "institutionalize" social relations. These rules can be imposed on all field

members by a single dominant group or a coalition of such groups, or more cooperatively through the interactive

efforts of a good many groups. Relations between field members can be cordial and cooperative or hostile and

competitive. Where the ends are scarce resources and the survivability of groups are at stake, competition is likely to

be fierce. The goal of action in strategic action fields is to create and maintain the stability of the field while

simultaneously achieving each group's goals.vi

Therefore interactions between field members are geared to either produce or affirm a stable set of rules governing

field relations. We call the crystallized rules that define action in strategic action fields, conceptions of control. This

term sensitizes us to two issues: first, that the rules are a collectively shared cognitive construct and second, that they

are used to control interactions between organizations or groups in a strategic action field. The nature of these rules is

to give actors an intersubjective view of what other actors mean by their actions. Once in place they comprise the

template out of which subsequent actions are both constructed and interpreted. Hence, to the degree that a field is

characterized by a highly consensual template, the meanings of other actors will be clear. Strategic action fields with

developed templates are shifting aggregations of collective actors who are attuned and share a view of the field and the

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rules governing its operation. Members of strategic action fields function as the collective equivalent of a reference

group for one another.vii

The purpose of fashioning a shared template is, first and foremost, simply to ensure sufficient stability to

allow action to take place. Secondly, however, the rules and definitions that emerge can be expected to promote the

interests and advantages of already existing organizations or groups. This is achieved by articulating rules by which

actions between more and less powerful members can be made more predictable, less threatening, and more rewarding

to all. The critical problem in any strategic action field revolves around what the rules are and how they will be

enforced. Hence, all forms of strategic action oriented towards the creation and maintenance of rules are by nature

political in that they involve contestation and alliances.

But these rules are not benign and the result of individual's (either persons or collectivities) agreeing to a given

social order. Instead, they reflect an order that is imposed by a small set of organizations or groups and their leading

actors. For this reason, one can usefully distinguish between incumbents and challengers in any given strategic action

field. Incumbents are powerful organizations or groups which have the necessary political or material resources to

enforce an advantageous view of appropriate field behavior and definition of field membership on other groups. They

ordinarily have a fairly truncated view of field membership. For instance, administrations of elite private universities

view themselves as primarily competing with a handful of similar institutions.

This view contrasts sharply with the perceptions of challengers. Challengers are organizations or groups

which define themselves as members of a given strategic action field, but generally accept the given social order and

the advantages it gives incumbents either because they fear retribution by incumbents or because their survivability is

increased by accepting such a view. Challengers are those groups who ordinarily exert little control over the field.

As befits their position, challengers tend to have a more inclusive view of field membership than incumbents. They

are very much attuned to field leaders, even though these incumbents rarely deign to acknowledge the existence of the

challengers.

It should be noted that the actual content of conceptions of control are situational determined.viii This is

because the means and ends of strategic action fields are quite varied and the cultural solutions available to link means

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and ends are numerous. Indeed, the key problem that has prevented the emergence of a more general perspective like

the one offered here, has been the inability for social and political analysts to understand how the form and content of

action reflected similar formal processes, but only differed in regards to their actual cultural contents.ix

An

analysis of the construction, maintenance, and transformation of conceptions of control are at the core of our

political-cultural view of the construction of strategic action. Our goal, here, is to discuss the general processes that

produce conceptions of control. We see modern society as comprised of a myriad of strategic action fields with

varying degrees of crystallized conceptions of control organized around quite different substantive principles. The

structure and composition of strategic action fields reflects member efforts to fashion agreement with regard to three

issues: 1) membership criteria, 2) the defining goals of the field, and 3) the rules field members are to adhere to in their

relations with one another. Embedded in this conception of membership may be a collective identity.x We can say

a strategic action field is organized around a shared template when a number of collective actors share a fairly high

degree of consensus on all three points. Note that this does not imply that all members view the status quo in their

interest, but only that they agree on its contours and accept that definition of the situation.

Conceptions of control come into existence, then, as a result of concerted efforts by collective actors to

fashion a consensus on all of these counts. For this to happen, dominant actors will either have to possess sufficient

resources to impose consensus or have the ability to fashion a consensus that transcends their narrow interests and

encompass other's as well. This is where the social skill we discussed earlier comes into play. Should the consensus

regarding any of these points break down, the field is likely to be plunged into crisis, spurring member efforts to

reconstitute some order. This consensus may serve some members better than others. As one moves from incumbents

to challengers, the benefits are likely to be unevenly distributed, but challengers will accept the definition of the

situation, either because of the minimalist benefits available or because they have few choices.

It is important to examine the resources groups bring to the "consensus setting" process. Contenders can be

expected to bring some mix of material, political, or cultural resources to the consensus setting process.xi Of the three,

material resources have clearly attracted the most attention among organizational and social movement scholars.

Theorists working in both the "resource dependence" (Pfeffer and Salancik, 1978) and "resource mobilization"

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(McCarthy and Zald, 1973; 1977) traditions have stressed the important role of material resources, not only in the

emergence of particular organizations or organizational fields, but in shaping the goals and structure of those

organizations. We concur in the central role assigned to material resources and would expect, all other things, being

equal, to find resource rich contenders exercising considerable influence over the direction and ultimate outcome of

the consensus setting process. They simply have more conventional inducements to offer other field members in their

efforts to compel or coerce conformity.

Lacking the material resources to impose their vision of the field on others, contenders may still be able to

carry the day by mobilizing a certain conception of control. This requires institutional entrepreneurs with a certain

vision of the emerging field that is sufficiently attractive to enough contenders to forge a coalition capable of

negotiating and maintaining a stable system of field relations. Though somewhat rare, such SAFs may well prove the

most stable for their cultural inclusiveness. By building the interests of a number of contenders into the initial system,

the field may well have reserves of member loyalty to weather the kinds of shocks that are endemic in the life of SAFs.

Finally, contenders may be able to rely on the political support of powerful actors external to the field. These

include other SAFs and the SAFs of the state. Strategic action fields are interdependent in a number of ways. Field

relations can be vertical, in the sense that one field is dependent upon another. So, for example academic disciplines

are dependent upon universities and the state for support. Similarly, fields can have competitive or more cooperative

relations as well. In the case of academic disciplines we see a competition over resources. It is common for one sector

of the economy to provide inputs and consume outputs from other sectors of the economy. So, for instance financing,

purchasing, and selling can result in cooperation, competition, or dependency.

It is of some value to consider how the state is part and parcel of every SAF building project. The state is composed

of the organizations and the strategic action fields they form, which are directed towards the control of social order in

a geographic area. What distinguishes the state from other SAFs is the distinct claim of its constituent fields to

produce or at least ratify the rules for all other fields.

We do not want to present a conception of the state as monolithic.xii Instead, we prefer to conceive of it as a set of

strategic action fields as well albeit one whose ultimate power rests on force. In our context, the state offers the

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builders of SAFs numerous tools to construct new social action. This works in three ways. SAFs rely on a whole

series of cultural inventions including conceptions of corporate actors, definitions of legitimate action, and laws or

rules that define what actions are legal and illegal. Further, new conceptions of control often have to be formally or

tacitly ratified by actors in state SAFs. Finally, the goal of action in many SAFs is to get state actors to recognize their

grievances and to reorganize rules to favor certain groups in SAFs. Most social movements, for instance, are looking

to have state actors intervene into existing SAFs and revise the rules. In the world of corporations, actions are often

taken to get legislatures or regulators to rewrite rules to redefine the relations between organizations. In these ways,

the strategic action fields of the state are the single most powerful force shaping the emergence and subsequent

development of consensus in strategic action fields in a modern society.xiii

In democratic societies, it is useful to consider the process of institutionalization of a field as containing two parts,

often subject to different sets of dynamics. If the focus of this institution building project becomes some fields in the

state (as is often the case), then there can be explicit negotiations between the groups, their representatives, and in

some cases, lawmakers or regulators. This phase of institutionalization results in the creation of a set of rules or laws

that define a possible order for an SAF or set of SAFs.

But a negotiated set of rules does not complete the institution building project. A given set of rules, even those

written to explicitly favor one set of groups over another, often begins a period of contestation in the SAF. Using the

rules to create a stable SAF is the project of groups and organizations in the SAFs. This still requires finding a

conception of control which involves an explicitly political process of coalition building amongst existing

organizations and groups. This process can occur with or without the direct intervention of actors in the SAFs of states

and may even require another intervention by state actors. So, for instance, the creation of a regulatory agencies such

as the Federal Drug Administration, does not necessarily determine who the winners and losers are in a given SAF.

As a result, institution building projects directed at states can produce unexpected outcomes after the rules are in place.

Our general image of society is a myriad of strategic action fields. Groups and organizations are constantly trying

to create worlds of stability. The strategic action fields of the state operate to help (or resist) selected groups or

organizations. New strategic action fields come into existence when groups or organizations can form a stable

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strategic action frame that allows their ends to become fixed. Under these conditions a stable role structure emerges in

the strategic action field. Skilled strategic actors help produce such arrangements in the first place, and work to

maintain those stable arrangements against the turbulence of social life.

Change and Stability in Strategic Action Fields

Armed with these basic conceptual elements, we are now in a position to begin analyzing the conditions that

make for stability and change in strategic action fields. In our view, SAFs tend toward one of three states:

unorganized or emerging, organized and stable, and organized and unstable. We take up each of these three types of

fields, paying special attention to processes that tend to produce each.

An emerging field is an arena occupied by two or more groups whose actions are oriented to each other, but who

have yet to develop a conception of control to stabilize field relations. One can conceive of emerging fields as the

social space where rules do not yet exist, but where actors, by virtue of emerging, dependent interests, are being forced

increasingly to take one another into account in their actions. Concrete examples of such emerging fields might

include the U.S. auto industry between 1890 and 1920, the international state system between 1945-52, and the U.S.

civil rights movement between 1955-61.

Proposition 1: New strategic action fields are likely to emerge nearby existing strategic action fields. They are likely

to be populated by existing groups or offshoots of existing groups. States aid in the creation of new social space as

intended and unintended consequences of state actions. States will also be the focus of attention from emerging SAFs.

The possibility for the existence of new social spaces is always present. Indeed, to the degree that societies

are increasingly organized, the opportunities for forming new fields are increasing because the unorganized fields are

spawned by the empty spaces between organized fields, and those fields and the state. For instance, once the dominant

biological model of disease won out over its rivals, the medical profession and its specialties developed (Starr, 1984).

In the case of the economy, "new" product markets are often founded near to "old" product markets as part and parcel

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of the search to attain stability for the firm. Existing strategic action fields provide the opportunities for new strategic

action fields because they provide the "market" for new ends to emerge.

The state itself can be a great source of new strategic action fields. For example, as soon as a law is set in place,

then organizations or groups can move in to take advantage of the new opportunities it creates for strategic action.

Similarly, organized groups can take their grievances to state SAFs and attempt to help produce rules to stabilize their

SAFs. States can also intentionally or unintentionally undermine stable SAFs through direct or even indirect actions.

Indeed, to the degree that states interact with other states, and large-scale organizations in the economy and

nonprofit sectors come to operate across national borders, the possibility for the emergence of international fields

increases as well. For example, to the degree that the European Community completes the internal market and moves

towards more political integration, new strategic action fields are sure to emerge. For instance, we fully expect to see

European integration spawn any number of new multinational policy fields made up initially of existing national

organizations, but soon supplemented by new multinational public interest groups (see Marx and McAdam, 1995).xiv

Proposition 2: Emergent fields produce new conceptions of control. These frames can be borrowed from actors in

nearby social space. They will reflect the unique political compromise to produce stability in a given SAF.

Emergent fields are the locations in society where one expects to see the most innovative forms of action

precisely because there are few restrictions on action. One could go so far as to argue that almost all of the real

opportunities to innovate in strategic action fields occur at their formation. This is because actors in existing fields

which experience crisis will usually attempt to reinforce the existing consensus of control in the field and try and solve

the crisis with accepted knowledge. Hence, the source of change in a society is likely to be the fact that social

organization begets the possibility of new social organization and this provides innovators with new arenas for action.

One reason change seems so endemic to modern society is that the extension of social organization has exactly this

effect: i.e., the production of new social space.

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set of rules they have helped devise. They are now dependent upon it and this dependency restricts their ability to

conceive of alternative courses of action. Cognitively, it would be very difficult for an culturally "embedded" actor to

shift world views dramatically, especially when the world view and the system of field relations based on it has served

them well.

Challengers typically contest a stable SAF by a low level testing of the field's vulnerability to challenge

rather than an all-out assault on the status quo. The fact is, challengers are not simply disadvantaged relative to

incumbents; they are also dependent on them and on the very status quo that they seek to change. In short, there is a

"prisoner's dilemma" quality to the circumstances challengers find themselves in. Their interests would perhaps best

be served by a successful challenge to the status quo. However, an unsuccessful challenge would likely prove

disastrous, inviting, as it would, the wrath of incumbents. So the overwhelming tendency is for challengers to play it

safe, preferring to maintain their position in the system, while awaiting clear signs of incumbent vulnerability.

Proposition 4: Strategic action fields are generally destabilized by external shock originating from other strategic

action fields, invasion by other groups of organizations, actions of the state, or large scale crises such as wars or

depressions. An operational definition of a crisis is the failure of incumbent groups to survive.

It is our contention that SAFs are normally destabilized, not by internal processes, but by exogenous "shocks: to the

field. Typically these "shocks" take one of three forms.xvi The first might be termed "invasion by outside groups."

By "outsiders," we mean groups which had previously not been active "players" in the field. Outside challengers often

make the most effective competitors because they are not bound by the conventions of the field and instead are free to

bring new definitions of the situation and new forms of action to the fray. Their ability to be successful in this effort

will depend on a number of factors: the strength of the incumbent groups, the defection of inside challengers to their

side, and the attitude of state actors towards the invading group. If the state will not protect the incumbent's social

order and challengers defect, then the possibility for transformation is great.

Examples of invasion have been commonplace in recent years. So-called "hostile takeovers" are a form of

invasion. So too is the entrance of a major foreign investor into a previously national industry. But it isn't only

economic fields that are subject to invasion. In the early- to mid-1970s, the efforts of the Teamsters to unionize

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seasonal agricultural workers upset the relative stability that Caesar Chavez had been able to achieve within the farm

workers movement.

The second type of shock is the most common. Any given SAF is embedded in a highly elaborated set of

relationships with other fields, including fields in the state. Shocks take the form of changes in resource dependencies

or changes in the pattern of interaction between providers and audiences for the inputs and outputs of SAFs. Shocks

can emanate from these fields in intended and unintended ways and they can have the effect of destabilizing field

arrangements. This highly interconnected nature of relations between SAFs mean that there is always a certain

amount of rolling turbulence in democratic societies. This accounts for the constant sense of crisis in modern

democracies (more accurately, a set of complexly interrelated SAFs). When these crises occur, field members often

attempt to reestablish the current order of the field internally.

But if this fails, they most frequently take their grievances to the state. The vast majority of these petitions may well

be denied. Some number are processed in such a way as to affect only the field in question. But some small

percentage result in state or non-state action whose ripple effects wind up being felt by a greater or lesser number of

fields throughout the system.

Whatever form the external "shock" takes, its effects are likely to be the same. Such shocks threaten field stability

either by interrupting the flow of resources on which incumbent power rests, or by undermining the ties linking

incumbents to key external allies, especially state allies. Such shocks pose a clear threat to incumbent control of the

affected SAF, but they hardly guarantee a thoroughgoing restructuring of field relations. We can recognize a severe

shock when incumbent groups or organizations to disappear. The disappearance of old challengers and the appearance

of new ones is generally an indication of "normal" field activity. But the disappearance of incumbents suggests that the

field is no longer working to preserve the status quo.

Ironically, the "connectedness" of SAFs is a source of both strength and weakness. For an SAF to become

institutionalized means that it not only establishes stable social relations internally, but also externally. It has

legitimacy with the state and other SAFs. In crisis, actors in a given SAF can draw on these resources to try and

maintain stability. But, dependency on other SAFs can be a source of instability that creates crisis in the first place.

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The kind of shocks that result from crisis in nearby fields vary in their extent and severity. However, none

has a greater potential for affecting a large number of fields than fundamental changes in state mandated rules

governing the operation of all (or many) fields. So, for example, changes in federal anti-trust policy have historically

had significant effects not only on the practices of individual firms, but on the distribution of power within the myriad

fields affected (Fligstein, 1990).

Previously we distinguished between material, political, and cultural resources used by groups to contest the initial

structuring of a field. The extent to which an incumbent or set of incumbents is threatened by an external shock is

conditioned by the mix of resources on which they have come to depend. So, for example, an incumbent whose

position is heavily dependent on state sponsorship is very likely to be vulnerable should their external allies by

replaced by electoral or other means. Similarly, any shock that interrupts the flow of material resources to a SAF is

apt to critically weaken any incumbent who achieved power primarily through this means.

Should field stability rest primarily on the kind of broad cultural consensus discussed previously, then incumbents

are likely to be able to weather all but the most severe external political and/or material crises because the cultural

frame will continue to have broad appeal to all participants. To the degree that incumbents have a strong mix of

political, material, and cultural resources, they are even more likely to survive.

A hypothetical example will make our argument a bit clearer. Imagine a branch campus of a large state

university in which the Dean of an undistinguished medical school seeks to enhance the stature of his college within

the campus SAF by developing a hi-tech cancer center. He does so by petitioning the legislature for the lion's share

of the resources needed to launch the project. After a bitter fight, a significant allocation is made, thus significantly

enhancing the Dean's position within the university community. But the effects hardly stop there. To cement the

legislative agreement, a new set of guidelines prohibiting the "duplication of university programs" is enacted. The

immediate effect of this prohibition is the closure of a small cancer research lab at another branch campus. But the

ripple effects continue. Legislative approval of the allocation is based, in part, on a staff report projecting increased

tax revenues for the first three years of the project. The tax revenues never materialize. As a result the legislature is

required to trim the budgets of the other branch campuses by an average of three percent. At one of the campuses, the

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political fallout from the cuts is severe enough to cost the president his job, while at another a coalition of deans and

department heads uses the crisis to justify closing the College of Education, whose resources they have long coveted.

One could play out this example indefinitely, plausibly detailing a good many other ripple effects

increasingly distant in both time and space from the original precipitating event. The point is that even processes as

routine as these have the potential for disrupting power relations in fields far removed from the original locus of action.

As coupled, interdependent set of SAFs, modern democratic societies are inherently turbulent, with change pressures

emanating from SAF crisis, often routing through "petition processes" and then spreading outward in ever less

predictable patterns to other affected fields. Thus, "rolling" crisis caused by the formation of new SAFs and crises

engendered in existing SAFs and spread to nearby SAFs is endemic to modern societies.

Proposition 5: States will be the focus of action in crises. This explains why modern societies appear to be crisis ridden.

General societal crises are rare, but when they occur, they have the potential to rewrite the rules across much of

society.

The third type of exogenous shock are those rare macro level events or processes such as war, economic depression,

and the like which tend not simply to destabilize individual fields, but the entire national/state structure in which the

fields are embedded (Hook, 1993; Dobbin, 1994). This type of crisis can set in motion a period of prolonged and

widespread crisis in which groups struggle to reconstitute all aspects of social life. Chief among these struggles is the

struggle to fashion a new state and to create a stable consensus agreeable to a new set of incumbents. By destroying

any semblance of a political status quo, regime crises encourage innovative strategic action by all groups sufficiently

organized to contest the structuring of a new political order.

Generally, we expect regime crises to arise in the same way more localized field crises develop; that is, as a

result of some shock or set of shocks to those fields that comprise the state. These shocks have similar sources to those

that other strategic action fields experience. Other states can threaten a given state symbolically, or more often by

engaging in direct forms of conflict. In the extreme, a state can be taken over by another state and that changes the

rules for all other organized strategic action fields in society. Macroeconomic crises can also threaten the legitimacy

of the state by threatening its stable relations with existing fields. The more fields involved in these crises, the more

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likely the state is to become destabilized. To the degree that these crises reach epic proportions, the opportunities for

collective action to transform the entire system exist.

Our perspective points out why such crises are so rare. States are in the business of dealing with crisis by

promoting the survival of the most organized groups in their societies. It is only in the extreme conditions under

which those organized groups can no longer guarantee survival for their members and the state can no longer claim to

produce order that the possibility for transformation exists. Just as the conditions for the transformation of existing

strategic action fields increases when multiple shocks are present, one would expect the possibility for a general

regime crisis increases when multiple shocks occur. The threat of or loss in a war, combined with economic

depression would be enough to push most states into severe crisis.

Implications for the Sociological Study of Politics,

Social Movements, and Organizations

There has been a great deal of interest in a number of subfields in sociology applying insights from the "new

institutionalism" to substantive problems. The purpose of this section is to bring our political-cultural account of the

institutionalization of strategic action fields back to the sociological study of organizations, social movements, and the

state in order to show how these general dynamics are part and parcel of strategic action projects across these

subfields.

There are three issues we want to discuss. First, states, social movements, and the existence of organizations are

linked historically, having emerged as distinct collective forms in response to the collapse of the ancien regime.

Second, all three phenomena betray the same generic action dynamics under discussion here. That is, it is possible to

analyze any given state, organization, or social movement as a field in its own right and apply the insights from the

general model. Finally, the differences between the three phenomena are mainly due to differential structural position,

either in terms of resources (as is generally the case in social movements), whether or not groups are challengers or

incumbents in their SAFs, or functional location (ie. the state or "civil society").

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In recent years scholars have persuasively that the "national social movement" emerged in response to the rise of the

modern state (Tilly, 1982; Tarrow, 1992; 1994; Sewell, 1990; 1992). While there was no shortage of collective action

prior to the rise of the modern state, the form that such action took changed dramatically during and following the

period of state formation. As the modern state came to exercise increasing control over more and more aspects of

daily life, it also came to be seen as the appropriate target of collective efforts to promote or resist change in society.

Accordingly, the increasingly organized, enduring national social movement came to replace the more ephemeral,

localized forms of collective action (e.g., food riots, peasant revolts) that had prevailed prior to the rise of the modern

state.

We extend this argument in two ways. First, social movements are not the only collective form to emerge in

response to the process of state formation. On the contrary, all of the principal modern forms of interest aggregation

and advocacy--notably political parties, formal organizations, and social movements--arose form the ashes of the

ancien regime. Secondly, we think this wholesale transformation of the forms of public organization owed to more

than just the increasing centralization of authority embodied in the modern state. The collapse of the ancien regime not

only occasioned a shift in the scale of state authority, but a thorough discrediting of the legitimating account on which

the old order rested and the disappearance of the "family" of corporatist forms consistent with the account.

In their place, there arose the modern state and parties, national social movements, and formal organizations

(remembering that the first bureaucracies were in states, not firms and that both were modelled after the army) familiar

to us today. In turn this distinctive organizational topography reflected the very different legitimating fame that

developed apace of the process of modern state formation. The key difference between the ideational underpinnings

of the modern and earlier absolutist state centers on their very different sources of legitimacy. Whereas the earlier

monarchical states rested on the notion of divine right, the modern democratic state governed at the behest "of the

people." This latter legitimating account encouraged the development of various forms of public organization replace

the privatized corporatist forms characteristic of the ancien regime. The second link between our three phenomena

is the fact that all three betray adherence to the basic dynamics of strategic action sketched above. We think that the

basic problems of creating stable worlds, maintaining those worlds, and defending them as they come under attack, are

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at the core of each of these three fields. Strategic actors, acting as institutional entrepreneurs, try and create

conceptions of control to mobilize groups and organizations under a collective frame. If they are successful, then those

actors become the defenders of the status quo.

In our view, the differences in behavior owe primarily to the very different structural positions in which these

actors find themselves and the different types of fields in which we tend to encounter them. It is useful to explore this

theme more systematically by considering the features of states, social movements, and organizations in the nonstate

sphere.

Tarrow (1994) has recently argued that social movements are "collective challenges by people with common

purposes and solidarity in sustained interaction with elites, opponents, and authorities (p. 3-4)." This definition shows

some of the basic differences between social movements and other forms of organization. Social movement groups are

typically found as challengers (rather than incumbents) in either unorganized or unstable fields. That means that

movement groups are generally constrained by various resource deficits and geared to exploiting the unorganized or

unstable environment in which they find themselves. As a result, they depend more on finding "common purpose and

solidarity" in order to press forward their claims. Finding a cultural frame or conception of control that will produce

such solidarity is about the only tactic that institutional entrepreneurs have at their disposal.

Social movements can be distinguished as well by the difference in their ends. Social movement groups are

generally focussed on producing new SAFs from existing state actors. To do so, they depend on a fundamental

destabilization of the political and material alignments among incumbents to have the opportunity to survive. It is

environmental uncertainty in the form of the exogenous shocks described earlier that grants to movement challengers

the temporary leverage essential for successful collective action. Theorists of movements and revolutions (Goldstone,

1991; Kitschelt, 1986; McAdam, 1982; Tarrow, 1989; Tilly, 1978) have termed this dynamic the "expansion of

political opportunities" and studied its effects in a variety of movements and revolutions.

Social movements emerge in response to shocks that destabilize alliances between state actors and organizational

incumbents. But, these movements are not restricted to the world of nonorganized politics, they occur in the economy,

and in normal politics. Any time there exists unorganized social space, the process of organizing that space very much

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actors. Second, the procedures that exist for forming new SAFs will constrain how state actors and other organized

actors act vis a vis one another. Third, the organizational capacities of state actors, social movement actors, and formal

organizations will differ greatly as well. Fourth, actors in states will require a "crisis" to undertake new SAF projects.

From the point of view of state actors, these crises are endemic to modern societies. Finally, the conceptions of control

that are available to state and other actors to make legitimate claims to write new rules will greatly affect the balance

of power in a given SAF. The distribution of resources, the existing balance of power, and the existence or

nonexistence of rules, explain why sometimes state actors appear to be in the control of organized groups, and at other

times, they appear to have their own agenda, and at still others, they appear incapable of finding rules to govern some

domain of SAFs.

Our general view of society as a mass of strategic action fields can be used to show how social movements,

organizations, and state actors across spheres have interacted. A given SAF may depend on dynamics from all three

spheres to make sense of its trajectory. It is useful to give some examples of what we have in mind.

The history of the civil rights movement concerns the strategic interaction between movement groups, state actors

(at various levels), and various non-state organizations. Incremental shifts in the actions of federal and state officials

helped set the movement in motion by granting blacks more leverage with which to press their claims (McAdam,

1982). In turn, movement groups sought to broaden their influence by exploiting emerging divisions between

incumbent groups both within and outside of the state. For their part, many non-state organizations--foundations,

retail chains, national church groups, unions--were drawn into the fray either proactively or in reaction to pressure by

civil rights groups or state actors. In the end, the movement may have achieved less than it hoped, but it nonetheless

resulted in the passage of laws and the institutionalization of programs (i.e., affirmative action) that have had

far-reaching effects on the structure and operation of most state and non-state organizations.

A good example of similar processes involving social movements, organizations, and the state, is the recent

scholarship on the New Deal has made clear (Amenta, 1991; Orloff, 1990; Quadagno, 1986; Skocpol, 1988). The

generalized crisis occasioned by the Depression rendered various state and non-state incumbents vulnerable to

challenge, thereby encouraging mobilization by a variety of social movements. These groups helped exacerbate the

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crisis, abetting Roosevelt's ascension to the White House. Pressed by these various challenging groups as well as

incumbent groups such as corporations, Roosevelt's policy changes further destabilized the status quo in a good many

SAFs and resulted in the creation of whole new SAFs, like social security, workmen's compensation, and the

legalization of unions. Finally, any serious historical analysis of the emergence or subsequent development of any

category of formal organization will turn on the same kind of argument. Fligstein's (1990) analysis of the series of

changes that took place in the organizational structure and strategy of the American firm between 1880 and 1970

affords a nice case in point. He argues that the emergence of the large corporation in the U.S. around the turn of the

century had a social movement like quality. Entrepreneurs were trying to find legal ways to limit cutthroat competition.

They alternated between periods of competition and cooperation. Cartels were unstable and the Sherman Antitrust Act

made them illegal. After state actors declined to limit competition, it became clear that attempting to form monopolies

or oligopolies through mergers was not illegal and might have the effect of controlling competition. The turn of the

century merger movement reflected the acceptance and spread of this conception of control amongst the entrepreneurs

who own large firms in the economy.

Conclusions

The resurgence of institutional theory is one of those vague social movement like processes that occurs

periodically across the academy, often in response to intellectual crises. Two of its interesting features are the

heterogeneity of its causal mechanisms and at the same time, its spread across a wide variety of disciplines. In line

with our analysis, we think institutional theory has managed to form a collective identity that provides role niches for

many of its participants. Many scholars in the social sciences are interested in how rules get constructed for groups and

how these are spread and maintained. This interest unites the discourse across disciplines and allows for conversations

to occur at conferences and through the literature. It is a conception of control across which a lot of disparate interests

can be constructed.

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But, again, in line with the theory, there are lots of groups in institutional theory that are competing over the frame.

In order for sociology to have an important place in the field, we have to be able to provide some distinct contributions

that consider the questions of agency and politics. We think that there is a great deal of literature in sociology that

implicitly provides this kind of microfoundation for institutional theory in organizational theory. Our purpose has

been to try and use these ideas to develop a somewhat systematic view.

We think that institutional theory, in its many guises, originates with the failure of social, political, and economic

theories to provide leverage on how rules and meanings are made. Moreover, all of the disciplines have had to deal

with the fact that social space seems both stable and unstable and the theories of how and why this works have been

incomplete. In this paper, we have tried to advance the cause of a sociological view of what such a theory would look

like. We have described this effort as the attempt to construct a theory of social space (ie. strategic action fields).

We have tried to clearly outline how we think that action is culturally constructed, creates local social worlds, and

relies on the state for legitimation. We have also tried to theorize about the conditions under which worlds emerge,

remain stable, and are transformed. We proposed explicit propositions and provided some views about how our

notions can be incorporated into empirical work. We have also engaged in some theorizing about the trajectory of the

organized social world which everywhere appears to be getting both more organized and more open to upheaval. Our

views help understand the various sources for crises within the state and across types of strategic action fields. Finally,

we have tried to reconnect these more general social processes with the distinct types of arenas that broadly shape

action (ie. states, social movements, and organizations).

The arguments we have made here are intended to go beyond the general debate about what the "new

institutionalism" means across fields. We think this view fills in the gaps for scholars in sociology who are intrigued

by the talk of the "new institutionalism", but who have a difficult time grasping how such a view informs their

problems. By providing a view of how culture, agency, and politics is at the core of a sociological theory of

institutions, we hope we have found some common ground for discourse.

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NOTES

i. An example of this might be the identity "feminist" or "Democrat". In terms of a strategic action project, the slogan

"Europe 1992" contains imagery that has multiple meanings.

ii. This concept is very close to the classical idea of what managers do in organizations as expressed in Barnard (1937).

iii. It is an open question as to whether or not institutional entrepreneurs seek out situations where their skills might matter

or else if they are selected because they happen to be in the center of an unstable social world.

iv. This process often happens in a pragmatic fashion. Actors discover ways to make compromises with one another. Then,

on self-reflection, they discover a more general principle which they can then use in new situations.

v. Social space is used here synonymously with strategic action field. The idea is that groups are vying for similar ends and

make appeals to similar external groups. In most societies before modernity, social and geographic space were close to

identical. In modern society, groups can have contact without reference to a particular geographical location. The world

automobile industry, for instance, is spread across many strategic action fields that do not simply reduce to geographicspace.

vi. This does not mean that this effort is always successful. The point, here, is that groups seek to promote their survivability

and they do so by stabilizing relations with one another. Their success at doing so is part of the creativity of social life.

vii. In a stable strategic action field, one may find situations akin to the conventional dynamics of game theory. Strategic

action fields are arenas in which repeated games are acted out. Conceptions of control form the rules of the game and the

consensus that holds the game together is a form of Nash equilibrium. A stable field has a reproducible structure because

the actor's interests and resources are fixed and the outcomes are therefore stable. Of course our view is attuned to the

problem of achieving a stable game in the first place and the conditions under which a stable game might be undermined

(see, for example, Scharpf, 1991).

viii. This is akin to what Geertz (1984) has called "local knowledge".

ix. We think that there are differences in action in social movements, organized politics, and complex organizations. But

we think that there are commonalities that are formal in character as we describe them here. We will take up the issue of

differences at the end of this paper.

x. Collective identity is one of those terms that is used in many ways. We intend the term here to refer to a conception of

interest and self that transcends groups or organizations. This type of identity can be "deep" in that individuals' psyches are

dominated by it or "shallow" in that in a given context, actors have their interests defined. It can be as ephemeral as loyalty

to a brand name. The latter sense of collective identity is more likely in the organizational world.

xi. Social movements tend to have only cultural resources to offer their members, i.e., identities. Firms have material and

hence, political resources, while action in organized politics draws on all three forms.

xii. Indeed, the claim of the state to set the rules, what can be called sovereignty, is constantly open to question. This

involves the extent, type, and focus of regulation. This claim is variable in that in arenas in which its claim is asserted there

can be more or less sovereignty. It is also variable in that it can be contested.

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xiii. There are, however, significant differences in the ways in which ostensibly democratic and non-democratic states

operate and the forms of strategic action that each is likely to encourage. The essential logic of "stateness" in democratic

societies derives from the state's role in aggregating and protecting organized interests. Given that groups who benefit from

the status quo are more likely to be organized than those who do not, this usually means that democratic states act

conservatively to support established interests. But when crises or shifting political conditions prompt normally quiescentchallengers to mobilize, the fundamental logic of democratic states often prompt state actors to respond--even if

grudgingly--in ways supportive of emerging interests.

Non-democratic states, on the other hand, rest on a very different legitimating account and related conception of their

authority. Governance in such a system does not depend on the consent of the governed, but on some claim to "special

qualification" (e.g. divine right, long service to the party). Non-democratic states are under no obligation to aggregate and

arbitrate organized popular interests--in other words, to build and maintain a broad based consensus--as a means of

maintaining social order as well as their own power. Instead, claims to "special qualification" make the use of coercion and

violence a more legitimate and therefore common mechanism for maintaining state control and obviously limits the

opportunities for mobilization by challengers.

xiv. The literature on international relations generally stresses how increased interdependence of political and economic

actors give impetus to forming more international arrangements (Keohane, 1984).

xv. This is the situation that most resembles a typical social movement. In such situations, the social world is in flux and

many things are possible.

xvi. These shocks can have multiple sources. For instance, fields might become destabilized and then invaded.

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