Controlling Governance Issues in Professional-organizational Networks

This chapter focuses on the role of professional networks; how the expert professionals working on complex governance issues traverse their own peer networks as well as the organizational networks formally and informally involved in governing issues. One dynamic which has so far not been studied sufficiently is the role of issue professionals traversing the complex professional-organizational networks that are active in inducing or blocking consensus and convergence. The chapter introduces the concept of issue professionals as an important ideal type actor. Describing the professional-organizational nexus as two-level network permits us to consider how professionals and organizations take positions on particular issues relative to their peers, as well as the character of the ties between those involved on the transnational issues. The chapter presents several trajectories where issue professionals act in differential ways to produce issue control. Using a mix of methods we can distinguish not only professional and organizational characteristics but also different types of activities.