The work cited above is by no means exhaustive and many more speciWc domains of application could be reviewed. In fact, the network approach remains more a diverse set of overlapping discussions than a single uniWed approach to under- standing institutions. Although the usefulness of the network approach has been proven across a range of disciplines, two basic types of criticism are often leveled against it. The Wrst is that the network approach tends to produce a static and overly structural view of the world not suYciently sensitive to process, agency, and meaning. Emirbayer and Goodwin (1994) forcefully made this critique of social network analysis and Bevir and Rhodes (2003) have made it of policy networks. These authors agree that network language tends to slip easily into the kind of structuralism that treats networks as objects. In particular, they suggest that network approaches must be more attentive to the cultural or interpretive elements of relationships. Just as network institutionalism criticizes the reiWcation of groups, it must avoid a similar reiWcation of networks. Padgett’s (2001) recent work provides a good example of eVorts to overcome the tensions between structure, culture, and agency in network institutionalism.
A second related critique is that the network approach is primarily a framework for description rather than explanation. It is good at describing economic, political, or social complexity, but less useful for deriving testable causal arguments. There is truth in this criticism: the network approach lends itself more easily to description than to explanation. The obvious retort is that a good description is the necessary foundation of a good explanation. But that response sells short the explanatory potential of network institutionalism. This chapter has featured work attentive to the ways in which networks operate as mechanisms to explain political mobiliza- tion, social inXuence, or interest intermediation.
This chapter concludes by returning to the current and potential value of network institutionalism for political science. One of the principal advantages of network institutionalism is that it provides an analytical framework that grasps the ever-increasing complexity of our age. As our technologies become more like networks, so must our institutions. The archetypical pattern of governance at the beginning of the twenty-Wrst century requires political coord- ination across levels and between jurisdictions of government; the number of stakeholders has increased and elaborate webs of interaction and exchange between them have developed. Network institutionalism provides an unWnished, but highly promising paradigm for describing this complexity and explaining its consequences.
