Working papers
1) Corporate political power, regulatory change and network interdependence: A long-term view from the lead controversy in the United States, 1924-2003
Status : Revise and resubmit
Abstract
How do corporations shape regulations? Existing answers to this question overwhelmingly focus on outcomes. Often, the pathways to these outcomes are left ill-defined. This article investigates how corporate-state relationships are structured and how they are patterned over time. I outline an approach to regulatory networks that emphasizes interdependence. Relying on networks that span eight decades for the case of lead from Toxic Docs, a large database of previously classified industry documents, I perform community structure time series analyses and separable exponential family random graph models (STERGMs). I find that corporate-state interdependence grows not during the development of regulatory frameworks but in subsequent periods of regulatory expansion. Moreover, while corporate actors expectedly engage with legislators and governmental expert bodies, their ties are just as strong with the bureaucracies responsible for routine regulatory implementation. This study contributes to better understanding institutional contexts that allow for economic elites to exercise political power.
How do corporations shape regulations? Existing answers to this question overwhelmingly focus on outcomes. Often, the pathways to these outcomes are left ill-defined. This article investigates how corporate-state relationships are structured and how they are patterned over time. I outline an approach to regulatory networks that emphasizes interdependence. Relying on networks that span eight decades for the case of lead from Toxic Docs, a large database of previously classified industry documents, I perform community structure time series analyses and separable exponential family random graph models (STERGMs). I find that corporate-state interdependence grows not during the development of regulatory frameworks but in subsequent periods of regulatory expansion. Moreover, while corporate actors expectedly engage with legislators and governmental expert bodies, their ties are just as strong with the bureaucracies responsible for routine regulatory implementation. This study contributes to better understanding institutional contexts that allow for economic elites to exercise political power.
Keywords: regulations, social networks, elites, power, interest groups, risk
2) The Relational Structure of Corporate Ignorance Production
Status: Revise and resubmit
Abstract
This study interrogates patterns of interaction through which corporate actors influence environmental knowledge production. I ask 1) What types of knowledge-producing organizations are subject to most engagement by corporate actors? and 2) How intensive are relationships between corporate actors and knowledge-producing organizations? I answer these questions with the landmark case of lead in the United States (1924-2003). I rely on longitudinal network data built from the raw text of Toxic Docs, a database that comprises millions of previously classified corporate documents over eight decades. Using relational event modeling, I find that corporate engagement with scientific organizations is consistently more likely than with other types of actors. In contrast, corporate engagement with regulatory expert organizations is less so. I also find that corporate engagement with scientific organizations is responsive to growing federal interest in the lead problem and anticipates regulatory developments. This suggests that corporate engagement with scientists is best described not simply as reactive but also as preemptive.
This study interrogates patterns of interaction through which corporate actors influence environmental knowledge production. I ask 1) What types of knowledge-producing organizations are subject to most engagement by corporate actors? and 2) How intensive are relationships between corporate actors and knowledge-producing organizations? I answer these questions with the landmark case of lead in the United States (1924-2003). I rely on longitudinal network data built from the raw text of Toxic Docs, a database that comprises millions of previously classified corporate documents over eight decades. Using relational event modeling, I find that corporate engagement with scientific organizations is consistently more likely than with other types of actors. In contrast, corporate engagement with regulatory expert organizations is less so. I also find that corporate engagement with scientific organizations is responsive to growing federal interest in the lead problem and anticipates regulatory developments. This suggests that corporate engagement with scientists is best described not simply as reactive but also as preemptive.
Keywords: Corporate power, ignorance, industrial pollution, relational event modeling
3) Crushing victories. Environmental health activism and the hazardous politics of expertise
Status: In preparation
Abstract
This chapter examines the effects of consultation processes on knowledge-based mobilizations tackling environmental health problems. I focus on two such mobilizations in Québec: the Asbestos Victims Association of Québec’s and the multi-organization mobilization against industrial pollution in Rouyn Noranda. After making substantial gains in consultation processes, mobilization capacities of these groups should have increased. Based on extensive qualitative fieldwork, I interrogate what led to the opposite: why have regulatory gains disrupted rather than fueled mobilization? I propose a model of demobilization that emphasizes the consequences of epistemic cooptation, i.e., the process through which actors’ knowledge claims are borrowed or reused. Epistemic cooptation disrupts the initial leverage environmental health groups have against the state and corporate actors and neutralizes mobilization. After making substantial gains, mobilized groups need to undergo significant transformation of their aims and targets, reaccumulate new epistemic resources, and potentially renew their leadership. I show that while they undergo this transformation, mobilized groups become vulnerable to demobilization. This chapter contributes to understanding how expertise shapes mobilization outcomes.
This chapter examines the effects of consultation processes on knowledge-based mobilizations tackling environmental health problems. I focus on two such mobilizations in Québec: the Asbestos Victims Association of Québec’s and the multi-organization mobilization against industrial pollution in Rouyn Noranda. After making substantial gains in consultation processes, mobilization capacities of these groups should have increased. Based on extensive qualitative fieldwork, I interrogate what led to the opposite: why have regulatory gains disrupted rather than fueled mobilization? I propose a model of demobilization that emphasizes the consequences of epistemic cooptation, i.e., the process through which actors’ knowledge claims are borrowed or reused. Epistemic cooptation disrupts the initial leverage environmental health groups have against the state and corporate actors and neutralizes mobilization. After making substantial gains, mobilized groups need to undergo significant transformation of their aims and targets, reaccumulate new epistemic resources, and potentially renew their leadership. I show that while they undergo this transformation, mobilized groups become vulnerable to demobilization. This chapter contributes to understanding how expertise shapes mobilization outcomes.
Keywords: Social movements, knowledge, environmental health, public consultations, demobilization
4) Expert bureaucracies have outsized influence on the contents of science
With Peter McMahan (Associate Professor, Department of Sociology, McGill University)
Status: In preparation
Abstract
State institutions weigh on the contents of science through coercive mechanisms such as fund- ing and regulatory enforcement. But do they also endogenously influence science? We assess two pathways, scientific curation and production, through which expert agencies directly contribute to discourse in medical science. We find that the CDC and the ECDC influence science principally by hosting and curating journals, which the WHO’s impact is effected primarily through employment of researchers. These findings support the notion that the work of expert agencies contributes to the internal workings of science and offer insights into the institutional features that shape those contributions.
Source of project image: Ernst Ludwig Kirchner. 1936. From the Apocalypse, Retrieved from National Gallery of Art.
State institutions weigh on the contents of science through coercive mechanisms such as fund- ing and regulatory enforcement. But do they also endogenously influence science? We assess two pathways, scientific curation and production, through which expert agencies directly contribute to discourse in medical science. We find that the CDC and the ECDC influence science principally by hosting and curating journals, which the WHO’s impact is effected primarily through employment of researchers. These findings support the notion that the work of expert agencies contributes to the internal workings of science and offer insights into the institutional features that shape those contributions.
Source of project image: Ernst Ludwig Kirchner. 1936. From the Apocalypse, Retrieved from National Gallery of Art.