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Bringing back Max Weber in Network Governance Research

Democracy
Governance
Political Sociology
State Power
Institutions
Benno Netelenbos
University of Amsterdam
Benno Netelenbos
University of Amsterdam

Abstract

Over the recent years a body of literature on the relation between networks, state power and democracy is steadily growing. Yet, it also attracts much critique. It is too normative, meta-levelled, rhetorical, uncritical, ahistorical, and tends to ignore politics, power and conflict. So, what is going on? And what can be done about it? In this Paper I argue that we are in need for a critical-democratic research program but that current literature tends to lacks sociological embeddedness in its normative, empirical and practical goals. To solve this problem I argue we need to bring back Weber’s sociological approach to political legitimacy. This might sound surprising as the Weberian paradigm is a sociology of hierarchy, not of networks. Yet, Weber was struggling with similar problems we are confronted with today as he tried to understand the historical rise of bureaucratic organisations and the empirical consequences for state power and democratic politics, providing the sociological basis for generations of critical-democratic theory. Seen from this perspective, there is much to learn to overcome the overtly normative, rhetorical, deinstitutionalised and ahistorical debate within network governance research (NGR). To make this argument I will show that the lack of sociological embeddedness undermines the normative, empirical and practical goals of the democratic research program in NGR. Second, after introducing Weber’s general approach to legitimacy, I show it has much to teach us about network effectiveness, the nature of different kinds and types of networks, shifting patterns of governance in their institutional environment, and about politics, power and conflict in general. I will conclude by providing a post-Weberian framework to political legitimacy more attune to the complexity of contemporary politics and suitable for NGR which might help us to solve the lack of sociological embeddedness of the current debate.