Still No Robust Evidence for World Polity Theory

Wimmer, Andreas; Feinstein, Yuval

doi:10.1177/0003122416641372

Cited by 6 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 7 publications

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“…Furthermore, as Syväterä and Qadir [80] have indicated, what actually spreads as a cultural model is not a single, identifiable organizational format, but an evolving codification that moves back and forth through the world polity. In this sense, instead of approaching such ramifications as local variations [28], the study propounds them as discursive variations (derivations), since they can distinctively be diffused across the world in the following courses, and "finally leads, on the aggregate, global level, to the worldwide hegemony of the nation-state model" [107]. The global rise of religious nationalist movements [108,109] and the racial/ethnic sense of national belonging [33,110] would put those discursive variations beyond local domains.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Domesticating the Global Discourse of Nationalism in Early Twentieth-Century Iran: A Sociological Institutionalist Account

Barjasteh

2023

Societies

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This article explores how nationhood was discursively constructed in early twentieth-century Iran. While most studies concentrate on micro-national causes, this study complements this literature by drawing on domestication theory to show how globally diffused nationalist discourse was localized and tailored to the Iranian context at the turn of the twentieth century. It employs the methods of critical discourse analysis and critical metaphor analysis to investigate politics in the construction of nationhood in Iran. The data include all editorials and articles in three highly influential Iranian periodicals: Qanun, Tarbiyat, and Kaveh. By analyzing the shared premises in this data, the study highlights the transnational nature of the discourse to indicate how Iranian nationhood was embedded in world society yet adapted locally. The analysis then identifies three variations of Iranian nationhood, each woven into a particular national narrative at the time. These findings attest to the meso-level approach that addresses the discursive side of diffusion mechanisms and calls attention to the discursive politics in localization processes of nationhood. They point to new directions to understand contemporary Iran, not as an outlier or exception, but rather as discursively connected to world society. Given the discursive opportunities arising from these contentious notions of nationhood, the study calls for further critical investigations of identity-based appeals, often by authoritarian actors, in Iran’s modern politics.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Domesticating the Global Discourse of Nationalism in Early Twentieth-Century Iran: A Sociological Institutionalist Account

Barjasteh

2023

Societies

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“…For example, knowing the political dynamics in each nation-state is not necessary for understanding the importance of IGOs for state formation in the post-war system (Li and Hicks 2016). Yet, other scholars would rebut that the World Polity approach operates at far too grand a level of aggregation, and that action is not global but context- and location-bound, centering on contestation (Wimmer and Feinstein 2010, 2016).…”

Section: The Emergence and Institutionalization Of Norms At The Globamentioning

confidence: 99%

The Politics of World Polity: Script-writing in International Organizations

2017

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Sociologists have long examined how states, intergovernmental organizations (IGOs), international nongovernmental organizations (INGOs), and professional groups interact in order to institutionalize their preferred norms at the transnational level. Yet, explanations of global norm-making that emphasize inter-organizational negotiations do not adequately explain the intraorganizational script-writing-that is, the codification of norms in prescriptive behavioral templates-that underpins this process. This article opens the black box of how scripts emerge and institutionalize within IGOs. Script-writing is a function of both world-cultural frames and material interests, held by different intra-organizational actors: scientific IGO staff and state representatives in governing bodies, respectively. The interplay between these frames and interests determines whether scripts will institutionalize. In this theoretical model, worldcultural and power-political explanations are pertinent to different, mutually informing, and coexisting aspects of the script-writing process. As a corollary of our approach, we present a conceptual framework for the study of intra-IGO script-writing, which is contingent on three normative struggles: among IGO staff, within an IGO's board of directors, and between the staff and the board. To empirically substantiate our arguments, we examine scripts on taxation and capital controls by the International Monetary Fund. We conclude by discussing the broader implications of our model for the study of international organizations and the engines of global norm-making.

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“…In response to earlier critiques of World Polity, there has been a shift in recent years toward a much greater emphasis on processes of contingency and decoupling (Bromley & Powell, 2012; Nauenberg, 2015) or recoupling (Hallett, 2010), local adaptations or even rejections of global models (e.g., Velitchkova, 2015), and, of course, in recent years an attempt to reconcile World Polity approaches with resurgent nationalisms and conflicts that potentially pull nation‐states further away from global standards (e.g., Koenig & Dierkes, 2011). There have also been renewed debates about the effectiveness of World Polity as an approach in historical analyses of the forces behind the rise of the nation‐state (see Li & Hicks, 2016; Wimmer & Feinstein, 2010, 2016).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Organizational theory in political sociology

Walker

2021

Sociology Compass

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Organizational theory and research has been enormously generative for political sociologists, if not always as fully centered as it might be, relative to broader notions of political power, economic resources, culture, and their interplay. This review both calls attention to the ways that organizational theory continues to inform political sociology and sets an agenda for how this interchange can be productively extended in various ways in scholarship on states, political parties, advocacy organizations, and business influences in politics. I highlight the genealogy of the new institutionalism and its variants (World Polity and institutional logics), population ecology (and the growing interest in both categories and audiences, alongside studies of the "ecology of ideology"), and research that follows in the broad tradition of resource dependence theory (and the link to more management-oriented approaches such as "non-market strategy" and stakeholder theories of organizational political activities). I also emphasize how novel theories of social movements and fields have offered innovative insights that incorporate organizational and political processes. I conclude by elaborating an agenda for how political sociologists can go further in maintaining and extending their highly productive and rewarding engagements with organizational theory.

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Still No Robust Evidence for World Polity Theory

Cited by 6 publications

References 7 publications

Domesticating the Global Discourse of Nationalism in Early Twentieth-Century Iran: A Sociological Institutionalist Account

Domesticating the Global Discourse of Nationalism in Early Twentieth-Century Iran: A Sociological Institutionalist Account

The Politics of World Polity: Script-writing in International Organizations

Organizational theory in political sociology

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