Political Brokerage Research Articles

Larger Legislatures and the Cost of Political Brokerage: Evidence from Brazil

Larger Legislatures and the Cost of Political Brokerage: Evidence from Brazil

Influencer regulations, governance and sociocultural issues in Asia

Influencer regulations, governance and sociocultural issues in Asia

Broadcasting anti‐media populism in the Philippines: YouTube influencers, networked political brokerage, and implications for governance

AbstractThis article interrogates platform governance and accountability amid the growing role of influencers in constructing political discourses, and particularly, in the intermediation of anti‐media ideological frames through their embeddedness in networked assemblages. We deploy the concept of “networked political brokerage” to examine the sociotechnical relations among influencers, the platform, and its users, and how this dynamic assemblage engages in the intermediation of anti‐media populism. The study draws from a critical examination of the network and discursive tactics deployed by Filipino YouTube influencers who advance partisan political commentary and deceptive narratives to delegitimize mainstream media institutions through issue network analysis concerning the franchise denial and eventual shutdown of the Philippines' oldest media network, ABS‐CBN. We problematize how influencers engage platform affordances and cultures of use to enable, amplify, and fortify the brokering of their political agenda within a larger network of political actors, while eliding accountability. Through the mutually affirming relationship of content creators and the platform, networked hyperpoliticized contents gain visibility and galvanize anti‐media rhetoric. Ultimately, the article raises concerns on the social consequences of networked political brokerage and offers a framework for how governance and policy discussions can treat the functioning of such networked political influence.

Local brokerage and international leverage: NGOs and land conflicts in Indonesia

AbstractThe rapid expansion of oil palm plantations in Indonesia has generated a large and growing number of conflicts between rural communities and palm oil companies over, mainly, access to land. Employing a detailed documentation of 150 such conflicts in four Indonesian provinces, this paper assesses and evaluates how local, national and international NGOs help communities address their grievances. We find that rights‐based activism characterises only a small portion of NGOs working on land conflicts, as a more common strategy revolves around political brokerage. NGOs generally fail to achieve significant impact, with the partial exception of (those connected with) international NGOs.

Platforms, alternative influence, and networked political brokerage on YouTube

This article interrogates political brokerage on YouTube by examining the platform’s role in the construction of political discourses and in configuring the action of a new genre of political actors advancing a political agenda through historical revisionism. Using assemblage theory and drawing from technography, we propose the concept of “networked political brokerage” to characterize the mutually affirming relationship of YouTube’s governance mechanisms and alternative political influencers’ microcelebrity practices in building, complementing, and magnifying historical revisionist narratives through and within a network of algorithmically sanctioned videos. We illustrate how this interplay of platform logics and ‘cultures of use' privileges and legitimizes political content into knowledge without accountability. We argue for the importance of examining YouTube as a socio-technical driver of this political brokerage process in curating political information in this contemporary political scene.

Village Leaders, Dual Brokerage and Political Order in Rural China

AbstractDrawing on an ethnographic study in two counties in Hunan province, this article explores how political brokerage has contributed to political order in China by facilitating contentious and non-contentious bargaining between the government and ordinary people. To account for the changing role of village leaders in rural politics, the article develops a concept of dual brokerage. This concept not only recognizes formal and informal linkages between village leaders and the two principals – the government and the community of villagers – but also underscores the interactivity between the linkages. We contend that despite the tensions between village leaders’ roles as state agents and as village representatives, these two roles in the reform era tend to be mutually beneficial. Under such an institutional configuration, village leaders in China in the reform era have strong incentives to act as dual agents and can make policy implementation more flexible and the use of state force more moderate. A comparison between the trilateral interactions before and after the tax reform in 2005 confirms that whether village leaders can effectively act as dual agents has a significant impact on the quality of rural governance in China.

El viaje a Roma de Luis de Oviedo, agente y coleccionista a principios del siglo XVII

Este artículo parte de numerosa documentación inédita para reconstruir el viaje a Roma de Luis de Oviedo (ca. 1585-1624), uno de los coleccionistas no aristocráticos más significativos de principios del siglo XVII. Expulsado de la catedral de Toledo a causa de su supuesta ascendencia conversa, el clérigo pasó más de cuatro años en Roma negociando su limpieza de sangre. Allí establecería una sólida red de contactos diplomáticos y artísticos de la que formaron parte embajadores, nuncios y pintores como Luis Tristán y Carlo Saraceni. A partir de los itinerarios de Luis de Oviedo, este artículo ofrece una nueva perspectiva sobre las conexiones entre la representación política y la intermediación cultural entre Toledo, Roma, y Madrid durante el reinado de Felipe III.

The Spiral of Sovereignty: Enacting and Entangling the State from Haiti's Streets

ABSTRACTHow, and at what cost, do people improvise political communities in the face of state collapse? In the neglected sectors of urban Haiti, groups of young men broker relations with politicians, state agents, and NGO workers to secure representation, resources, and jobs for themselves and neighbors. Although often classified as apolitical criminal gangs, these groups (locally called baz) more accurately express a novel mode of state‐making in their attempts to perform governance and make other governing agents active in the zone. The baz has proved an innovative and often effective form of political brokerage in the current configuration of state and NGO governance while at the same time precipitating contests of leadership that exacerbate neighborhood insecurity. Still, I argue that this effort to reconstitute state‐like modes of rule and order offers an important lesson for political thought: one that counters prevailing modes of conceptualizing the state as that which should be avoided. In the stead of a vitiated government, the state can resurface as the aspirational bedrock of the good society. [governance, gangs, urban politics, state and sovereignty, Haiti]

Assembling Formal and Informal Urban Governance: Political Brokerage in Recife, Brazil

This article approaches urban governance as an assemblage of formal and informal practices, comprising official procedures and personal favours, of legal frameworks and private arrangements between...

Trabajo político territorial y (auto)clasificaciones del quehacer político. Perspectiva desde la trayectoria de un líder barrial en la Ciudad de México

En este artículo se analiza el trabajo político realizado a escala territorial por un líder barrial de la Ciudad de México. Con apoyo en una socióloga comprensiva y el estudio de una trayectoria específica, se trata de entender cómo un líder barrial hace un trabajo de construcción de beneficiaros de los programas sociales a escala territorial y cómo junta recursos que no llegarían allí sin su trabajo. Se ofrece aquí una visión alterna a los análisis que enfatizan la captación de recursos públicos con fines electorales por parte estos líderes, con el objetivo de invitar a investigadoras e investigadores al mundo del intermediario para dimensionar la complejidad de su actuación. También se dan a conocer los dilemas morales y políticos que condicionan la conducta de este líder y se propone, sin prejuicio moral, comprender cómo el trabajo político se inserta en acciones donde la dimensión instrumental se entremezcla con la dimensión moral e ideológica.

Dinámica sociopolítica de la revolución ciudadana. El arte de servir como trabajo político que une y separa sociedad y Estado

Este artículo analiza las relaciones que se instituyen entre sociedad y política en el contexto de la denominada revolución ciudadana en Ecuador. A través del estudio etnográfico de la práctica de la intermediación o arte de servir, el texto propone comprender la especificidad del trabajo político, los vínculos y las tensiones que se construyen entre los habitantes del suburbio de la ciudad de Guayaquil, los miembros de Movimiento Patria Altiva i Soberana (PAIS) y los funcionarios del Estado. Las reuniones de socialización política y las ferias sectoriales –como rituales de institución– son los escenarios seleccionados para observar las interacciones y la performance pública de los actores protagónicos del actual régimen de predominio político en Ecuador.

El trabajo de los armadores políticos en Argentina: desafíos, instrumentos y competencias para el detrás de escena

Este artículo aborda el carácter multifacético del trabajo político a partir de una investigación sobre los “armadores políticos” desde el regreso a la democracia hasta 2007 en Argentina. Se caracteriza al Ministerio del Interior y las principales tareas que lo hicieron durante mucho tiempo el ministerio político del gabinete nacional y las herramientas de las que dispuso para enfrentar sus principales pruebas. Se conceptualiza además el trabajo de intermediación entre pares realizado por sus miembros desde 1983, puntualizando sus desafíos principales en diferentes períodos históricos, así como los recursos y destrezas valorados para afrontarlos.

Pīrs and Politics in Punjab, 1937–2013

AbstractThis article provides a first systematic mapping of politically influential shrines across Pakistani Punjab by identifying shrine-related families that have directly participated in elections since 1937. One of the earliest entrants in the politics of pre-partition Punjab, shrine elites (pīrs) have shown remarkable persistence in electoral politics post independence. We find striking long-run continuities in the initial configuration of religion, land, and politics fostered during colonial rule and embodied in political shrines. Exploring possible mechanisms of this persistence, we emphasize the role of shifting political alliances, repeated military interventions, marital ties among shrine elites, and preservation of political brokerage. Defined by their privileged ‘origins and associations’ and organized as a group with a strong sense of solidarity around protecting common interests, the pīrs are a key component of Punjab's power elite, the study of which is central to understanding the genesis and persistence of elites and institutions.

Cultural Patrimony, Political Identity, and Nationalism in Southwestern Nigeria

Abstract:The convergence of Yoruba nationals and the intensification of nationalism in southwestern Nigeria for self-assertion, political brokerage, and power relations in colonial and post-colonial eras were reinforced by the projection of Yoruba cultural heritage and patrimony expressed both in person and literary productions. Using textual analysis and observation, this paper examines some aspects of cultural heritage and Yoruba nationalism and how cultural heritage created patrimony, the sense of a nation, established civic virtue, and formed local (re)publics in southwestern Nigeria. The present discourse further examines how cultural patrimony is used to echo Yoruba sense of marginalization and political superiority in Nigeria. The paper further argues that most of this cultural heritage addresses a fairly well-defined audience, most especially those sympathetic to Yoruba nationalism and politics. Thus, cultural heritage and patrimony are active agents of nationalism and political identity in southwestern Nigeria.

Exceptional or just well connected? Political entrepreneurs and brokers in policy making

Policy brokers and policy entrepreneurs are assumed to have a decisive impact on policy outcomes. Their access to social and political resources is contingent on their influence on other agents. In social network analysis (SNA), entrepreneurs are often closely associated with brokers, because both are agents presumed to benefit from bridging structural holes; for example, gaining advantage through occupying a strategic position in relational space. Our aim here is twofold. First, to conceptually and operationally differentiate policy brokers from policy entrepreneurs premised on assumptions in the policy-process literature; and second, via SNA, to use the output of core algorithms in a cross-sectional analysis of political brokerage and political entrepreneurship. We attempt to simplify the use of graph algebra in answering questions relevant to policy analysis by placing each algorithm within its theoretical context. In the methodology employed, we first identify actors and graph their relations of influence within a specific policy event; then we select the most central actors; and compare their rank in a series of statistics that capture different aspects of their network advantage. We examine betweenness centrality, positive and negative Bonacich power, Burt’s effective size and constraint and honest brokerage as paradigmatic. We employ two case studies to demonstrate the advantages and limitations of each algorithm for differentiating between brokers and entrepreneurs: one on Swiss climate policy and one on EU competition and transport policy.

Marika Keblusek and Badeloch Noldus, eds, Double Agents: Cultural and Political Brokerage in Early Modern Europe

Marika Keblusek and Badeloch Noldus, eds, <i>Double Agents: Cultural and Political Brokerage in Early Modern Europe</i>

Brazilian brokers, boundaries and buildings: A material culture of politics

This article contributes to understanding the material culture of contemporary political practice, particularly in a context of high sociopolitical inequality, by focusing on the spatiality and materiality of political brokerage. Its central question is where brokers mediate between different worlds and with what material artifacts. The author presents the case of community leaders in a favela in Recife, Brazil, who operate at the boundary between different worlds separated by class, race and place. Their offices, with their material artifacts, form brokerage spaces. He introduces these offices as boundary places: privileged spatial and material contexts in which worlds that would be incompatible in other circumstances become temporarily compatible. Simultaneously, in these boundary places, the differences between these worlds are reproduced. Through an in-depth analysis, he shows how brokers’ practices ‘take place’ in the spatiality and materiality of their offices, which become a stage for both the convergence and divergence of different worlds.

Mediating and getting ‘burnt’ in the gap: Politics and brokerage in a Recife slum, Brazil

This article takes a fresh look at political brokerage as a complex, provisional and contested phenomenon. Although brokerage has received little recent attention, I show how it remains critical to understanding the urban poor’s involvement in electoral politics. The article focuses on how local community leaders in a Recife slum, Brazil, operate as brokers during elections. Here, they have to deal with the different interests of their patrons (politicians) and their clients (their fellow slum dwellers), and also with the latter’s contradictory views on electoral politics. Slum dwellers combine a positive image, in which electoral politics provides access to resources, with a negative image, in which it contaminates all those involved, including the brokers. Further, by showing how these slum dwellers perceive electoral politics as coming from ‘another world’, this study counters the still prevalent functionalist understandings of brokerage which depict brokers as the forgers of a shared moral universe.

:Double Agents: Cultural and Political Brokerage in Early Modern Europe

:<i>Double Agents: Cultural and Political Brokerage in Early Modern Europe</i>

Distinguishing between political brokerage & political entrepreneurship

How can we distinguish between political brokers and political entrepreneurs within political space? Examining the role of individual agents, we can identify a number of definitional weaknesses in the entrepreneurship and leadership literature. This leads us to consider the agency determinants of broadly defined exceptional actors. We argue that accounts of exceptional agency have to incorporate information on the psychology, behaviour and relational environment of actors. However, we recognise that collecting complete data on agents is most often not feasible. Since relational data strongly reflect the choices and behaviour actors have been making we concentrate here on the distinction between brokers and entrepreneurs in relational space. Within relational social science however, brokerage has been often confounded with entrepreneurship. Our aim here is to decouple the underlying assumptions and operationalise this distinction in Social Network Analysis (SNA).