and disproportionality. Basically, only a few bad actors produce the vast majority of the pollution in any given
industry. In short, if one could clean up or eliminate these few bad actors in any given industry there would be
significant reduction of harmful externalities to both people and the environment. But the question remains, how
does one explain the existence of these incredibly bad actors especially when they harm the reputation of the
entire industry? The answer lies largely with the power of diversionary discourse and political connections. If
one criticizes poor performance, one must be criticizing the importance of jobs, economic development, and the
capitalist system. It is also the case these firms are located in particular political contexts – especially at the local
and state levels, with the political representatives protecting the future of these organizations. Hence the political
economy of pollution emergences and change is made difficult.
Institutional Theory and the Sociological Study of Complex Formal Organizations: With the
acknowledgement of the political economy of pollution and even the active efforts of third party organizations
to represent the interest of polluting industries in civil society discourse and political responses, I think there is
research that needs to be undertaken to explore organizational change through the applied use of institutional
theory. We know from institutional theory [new institutionalism] (DiMaggio and Powell 1983, 1991) that
organizations pick up new structures and practices from other organizations located in their particular
organizational field (industrial systems). In short, over time, organizations within the same organizational field
begin to look and act alike. Powell and DiMaggio outline three major isomorphic processes: coercive, mimetic,
and normative. Coercive represents the authority of government to legislate or mandate change or compliance,
usually in a particular field, e.g. health care. Mimetic processes refers to the voluntary decision-making that actors
do, typically under competitive pressure of one sort of another, to copy the behavior or structures of others. Few
actors typically invent innovations but rather adopt them from others by scanning their technical environment [i.e.
following what their competitors are doing]. And finally normative processes is adoption of certain behaviors,
ways of thinking, and behavior based on what is viewed as ‘best practice’ or professionally required. Here
professional standards and activities are adopted because they seem extremely appropriate to do so. Failure to
adopt these practices would likely signal to the larger environment that your organization is substandard. These
are powerful processes that have not been tested, to my knowledge, for social change. Hopefully the application
of this theory seems, at least basically obvious. What are the ways in which isomorphic processes could be
applied to changing organizational practices in critical organizational fields? One could build off the fine work by
Andy Hoffman, From Heresy to Dogma (2001 Stanford). On an organizationally related topic, I find considerable
concern on the behavior of industry-sponsored third parties. When third party organizations, NGOs in particular,
are formed to protect the narrow interest of particular business organizations at the expense of the larger public
through disinformation, these organizations are appropriating the legitimacy found in civil society. They then use
that legitimacy to promote the interest of their parent organizations. This is a controversial statement in that in
remains unclear today what should be in or out of civil society. Still there is an appropriation here that should be
critiqued. When does “civil society” not live up to its ideal of promoting the public good?
More Theoretical/Climate Change Topics as Background to other Scholarship: Finally this is a topic that may
beyond the scope of this workshop. I am currently working with others at the Maxwell School on exploring the
theoretical relevance of the Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change as an organization. The IPCC is a type
of network organization that is based on the integration of government, civil society, and business interests. This
is a new form of organizing that emerges largely out of Europe and represents a major new form of international
relations. While governments play an important role, their authority legitimacy as the sole authority on all matters
of international and political is being dramatically replaced in more a consensus model, not just of governments,
but other stakeholders as well and work toward promoting the public good. This work is part of a larger effort on
the sociology of international organizations.