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.
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