Under political attack: Institutional network dynamics in and out of crisis

Abstract

The resilience of institutions under political attack depends on many factors, including the capacity of their members to learn collectively and mobilize to reassert their own norms in the face of critique questioning the legitimacy of their institution. This presentation examines how members of such an institution react collectively in response to a crisis within their closed social context by looking at how their relational choices and network dynamics are influenced by external shocks. We propose a sociological extension to the studies of intra-organizational learning by considering the ebbs and flows of what we call “appropriateness judgments” as determinants of the creation of advice relationships between members of the institution during and after the political attack. We argue that such political exogenous crises trigger a shift in organizational members’ appropriateness judgments. This phenomenon is examined empirically in the case of a judicial institution subjected to an existential threat. To measure the mechanism of intra-organizational learning, we draw on longitudinal advice network data collected at the Commercial Court of Paris (2000-2005). Results of stochastic actor-oriented models (SAOM) offer a glimpse into these appropriateness judgments and their consequences on the evolution of the network as they are mobilized during the crisis and then demobilized when the crisis fades away. Theoretical and practical implications of challenges to political legitimacy of institutions more broadly are examined based on the analysis of the effect of such changes in the determinants of network evolution during and after the crisis.