Grahame Thompson | The Open University (original) (raw)

Papers by Grahame Thompson

1. Structures and Powers in the UK: Government at the Centre Richard Heffernan 2. Devolution, Sup... more 1. Structures and Powers in the UK: Government at the Centre Richard Heffernan 2. Devolution, Supranationalism and UK Politics Montserrat Guibernau 3. The Politics of Participation in the UK Mads Qvortrup 4. The Politics of Power: Policy Networks and Interest Representation in the UK Grahame Thompson 5. The Politics of Constitutional Reform Jeremy Mitchell.

Questions of European economic and political integration have been placed firmly on the policy ag... more Questions of European economic and political integration have been placed firmly on the policy agenda as we enter the late 1990s. The Economic Emergence of a New Europe? explores the arguments and forms of analysis deployed by those who have been pressing for closer integration since the early 1980s.

Oxford University Press eBooks, Feb 20, 2003

This chapter sets out the traditional analysis of network as a different organisational arrangeme... more This chapter sets out the traditional analysis of network as a different organisational arrangement to either hierarchy or market. The contrast is between hierarchies, markets, and networks as first coordinating devices and then as governance mechanisms. In the first instance, these are set up as ‘rivalrously complementary’ ideal types of social organisation to demarcate the different claims they make on how the organisation of the social is to be understood. The chapter lays out the basic claims made for networks in particular, as to how they are different from hierarchical and market forms of organisation. In other words, the chapter tries to systematise what might be the logic of networks and the legitimate limits to their operation. For hierarchical forms of organisation, the key features for governance are rule-bounded bureaucracy, authority, administration, and superordination and subordination. For market forms, the key features are price, self-interest, competition, and formal contracts.

Oxford University Press eBooks, Feb 20, 2003

Routledge eBooks, May 9, 2023

At the level of national economies, Grahame Thompson probes the shifting role of central banks, p... more At the level of national economies, Grahame Thompson probes the shifting role of central banks, particularly the Bank of England, in handling the manifest inadequacies of free-market economics in the wake of the 2008 financial crash. Although the Bank has not explicitly disavowed market orthodoxy, Thompson finds that there have been distinct shifts away from the practices initiated by the rise of neo-liberal monetary policy forty years ago. While seeking to pilot the UK’s financial system into a leading role in the international economy, the Bank, like its counterparts elsewhere, has also become both the key manager as well as regulator of the national economy. Its championing of ‘quantitative easing’ to try to stimulate economic growth could, argues Thompson, be compatible with the more radical ‘people’s QE’ advocated by the Corbyn camp in the Labour Party. While such a conversion may currently be beyond the mindset of the mandarin class, its possibility and the new-found pragmatism and powers of the Bank, suggests a non-neoliberal government and a reformed Bank, could pursue a more socially sensitive and progressive path.

Oxford University Press eBooks, Feb 20, 2003

This chapter compares and analyses three theoretically driven approaches to the analysis of netwo... more This chapter compares and analyses three theoretically driven approaches to the analysis of networks: social network analysis (SNA), transaction cost analysis (TCA), and actor-network theory (ANT). Each approach makes a claim to analysing hierarchies and markets as well. In the ANT approach, a network is not an intermediate form of organisation, but a set of relations between actors and techniques. Both ANT and SNA view network as an analytical tool that encompasses and explains both markets and hierarchies as variations of network structures. Only TCA offers an explicit defence of networks being intrinsically different from markets or hierarchies—in the way they coordinate and govern—but these differences can be conceptualised using a single analytical technique and transaction costs. This chapter examines the arguments against the ubiquity of TCA for the analysis of socio-economic coordination and governance, along with the ANT approach to market, organisation, and management, and interlocking directorates as an example of the SNA approach.

E. Elgar eBooks, 1993

Questions of European economic and political integration have been placed firmly on the policy ag... more Questions of European economic and political integration have been placed firmly on the policy agenda for the 1990s. This work explores the arguments and forms of analysis deployed by those who have been pressing for closer integration since the early 1980s.

Oxford University Press eBooks, Feb 20, 2003

This chapter investigates the political manifestations of networks, particularly as they pertain ... more This chapter investigates the political manifestations of networks, particularly as they pertain to the governance of organisational and economic matters. The idea of ‘policy networks’ is examined and how they operate. Specifically, the chapter explores how the internal structure of decision-making is organised, much of which has a resonance outside of policy networks proper to address how networks more widely might operate. The chapter also lays out the principles and trends associated with the issue of how to place networks in a wider context of other socio-organisational mechanisms of management and regulation. Finally, the chapter opens up on the issues of power in political networks, something that pervades these forms of organisational entity just as it does hierarchies and markets. Networks of political power and authority are discussed, along with policy networks and the formation of public policy, multi-level governance, network forms of governance and game theory, and social capital.

The Political Quarterly, Mar 29, 2023

Contemporary Sociology, Sep 1, 1996

Oxford University Press eBooks, Oct 25, 2012

Oxford University Press eBooks, Feb 20, 2003

This chapter looks at the industrial organisation as networks, focusing on interorganisational ne... more This chapter looks at the industrial organisation as networks, focusing on interorganisational networks. Some theoretical issues raised by interorganisational networks are discussed, including questions of the limits of an institutional analysis, knowledge with respect to these kinds of networks, the role of complementary and self-organisation, evolutionary approaches to networks, and problems associated with embeddedness and variety production that they pose. The chapter also explores how the network model has been deployed in the specification and analysis of the relationships between firms and other agents that occupy the microeconomic field of economic organisation. The strengths of networks as opposed to other mechanisms of socio-economic coordination, like markets and hierarchies, in organising inter-firm relationships are also considered, along with cooperation and trust between main firms and their subcontractors and suppliers, knowledge and innovation in networks, whether knowledge networks are effective as institutions, neural networks, venture capital and networking, and the evolution, biology, complexity, and self-organisation of networks.

Oxford University Press eBooks, Feb 20, 2003

This book brings some clarity to the discussion of networks. It tests the case as to whether it i... more This book brings some clarity to the discussion of networks. It tests the case as to whether it is possible to construct a clearly demarcated idea of a ‘network’ as a separable form of socio-economic coordination and governance mechanism with its own distinctive logic. In doing this, the primary contrast is to markets and hierarchies as alternative and already well-understood forms of such socio-economic coordination each with its own particular logic. Thus, the focus is on the domain of the socio-economic (which includes political aspects of networks), and it is about the organisational domain of the socio-economic. A distinction is made between network as a conceptual category and network as a social organisation. Three approaches to networks are considered: social network analysis, transaction cost analysis, and actor-network theory. Finally, the book explores the whole area of information and communications technology and networks and how they are argued to be radically transforming the nature of international relations.

Cambridge University Press eBooks, Mar 28, 1997

11 GLOBALIZATION IN QUESTION: INTERNATIONAL ECONOMIC RELATIONS AND FORMS OF PUBLIC GOVERNANCE Pau... more 11 GLOBALIZATION IN QUESTION: INTERNATIONAL ECONOMIC RELATIONS AND FORMS OF PUBLIC GOVERNANCE Paul Hirst and Grahame Thompson INTRODUCTION " Globalization" has become an increasingly fashionable concept in the so-cial sciences. It ...

Globalization and Social Change, 2003

1. Structures and Powers in the UK: Government at the Centre Richard Heffernan 2. Devolution, Sup... more 1. Structures and Powers in the UK: Government at the Centre Richard Heffernan 2. Devolution, Supranationalism and UK Politics Montserrat Guibernau 3. The Politics of Participation in the UK Mads Qvortrup 4. The Politics of Power: Policy Networks and Interest Representation in the UK Grahame Thompson 5. The Politics of Constitutional Reform Jeremy Mitchell.

Questions of European economic and political integration have been placed firmly on the policy ag... more Questions of European economic and political integration have been placed firmly on the policy agenda as we enter the late 1990s. The Economic Emergence of a New Europe? explores the arguments and forms of analysis deployed by those who have been pressing for closer integration since the early 1980s.

Oxford University Press eBooks, Feb 20, 2003

This chapter sets out the traditional analysis of network as a different organisational arrangeme... more This chapter sets out the traditional analysis of network as a different organisational arrangement to either hierarchy or market. The contrast is between hierarchies, markets, and networks as first coordinating devices and then as governance mechanisms. In the first instance, these are set up as ‘rivalrously complementary’ ideal types of social organisation to demarcate the different claims they make on how the organisation of the social is to be understood. The chapter lays out the basic claims made for networks in particular, as to how they are different from hierarchical and market forms of organisation. In other words, the chapter tries to systematise what might be the logic of networks and the legitimate limits to their operation. For hierarchical forms of organisation, the key features for governance are rule-bounded bureaucracy, authority, administration, and superordination and subordination. For market forms, the key features are price, self-interest, competition, and formal contracts.

Oxford University Press eBooks, Feb 20, 2003

Routledge eBooks, May 9, 2023

At the level of national economies, Grahame Thompson probes the shifting role of central banks, p... more At the level of national economies, Grahame Thompson probes the shifting role of central banks, particularly the Bank of England, in handling the manifest inadequacies of free-market economics in the wake of the 2008 financial crash. Although the Bank has not explicitly disavowed market orthodoxy, Thompson finds that there have been distinct shifts away from the practices initiated by the rise of neo-liberal monetary policy forty years ago. While seeking to pilot the UK’s financial system into a leading role in the international economy, the Bank, like its counterparts elsewhere, has also become both the key manager as well as regulator of the national economy. Its championing of ‘quantitative easing’ to try to stimulate economic growth could, argues Thompson, be compatible with the more radical ‘people’s QE’ advocated by the Corbyn camp in the Labour Party. While such a conversion may currently be beyond the mindset of the mandarin class, its possibility and the new-found pragmatism and powers of the Bank, suggests a non-neoliberal government and a reformed Bank, could pursue a more socially sensitive and progressive path.

Oxford University Press eBooks, Feb 20, 2003

This chapter compares and analyses three theoretically driven approaches to the analysis of netwo... more This chapter compares and analyses three theoretically driven approaches to the analysis of networks: social network analysis (SNA), transaction cost analysis (TCA), and actor-network theory (ANT). Each approach makes a claim to analysing hierarchies and markets as well. In the ANT approach, a network is not an intermediate form of organisation, but a set of relations between actors and techniques. Both ANT and SNA view network as an analytical tool that encompasses and explains both markets and hierarchies as variations of network structures. Only TCA offers an explicit defence of networks being intrinsically different from markets or hierarchies—in the way they coordinate and govern—but these differences can be conceptualised using a single analytical technique and transaction costs. This chapter examines the arguments against the ubiquity of TCA for the analysis of socio-economic coordination and governance, along with the ANT approach to market, organisation, and management, and interlocking directorates as an example of the SNA approach.

E. Elgar eBooks, 1993

Questions of European economic and political integration have been placed firmly on the policy ag... more Questions of European economic and political integration have been placed firmly on the policy agenda for the 1990s. This work explores the arguments and forms of analysis deployed by those who have been pressing for closer integration since the early 1980s.

Oxford University Press eBooks, Feb 20, 2003

This chapter investigates the political manifestations of networks, particularly as they pertain ... more This chapter investigates the political manifestations of networks, particularly as they pertain to the governance of organisational and economic matters. The idea of ‘policy networks’ is examined and how they operate. Specifically, the chapter explores how the internal structure of decision-making is organised, much of which has a resonance outside of policy networks proper to address how networks more widely might operate. The chapter also lays out the principles and trends associated with the issue of how to place networks in a wider context of other socio-organisational mechanisms of management and regulation. Finally, the chapter opens up on the issues of power in political networks, something that pervades these forms of organisational entity just as it does hierarchies and markets. Networks of political power and authority are discussed, along with policy networks and the formation of public policy, multi-level governance, network forms of governance and game theory, and social capital.

The Political Quarterly, Mar 29, 2023

Contemporary Sociology, Sep 1, 1996

Oxford University Press eBooks, Oct 25, 2012

Oxford University Press eBooks, Feb 20, 2003

This chapter looks at the industrial organisation as networks, focusing on interorganisational ne... more This chapter looks at the industrial organisation as networks, focusing on interorganisational networks. Some theoretical issues raised by interorganisational networks are discussed, including questions of the limits of an institutional analysis, knowledge with respect to these kinds of networks, the role of complementary and self-organisation, evolutionary approaches to networks, and problems associated with embeddedness and variety production that they pose. The chapter also explores how the network model has been deployed in the specification and analysis of the relationships between firms and other agents that occupy the microeconomic field of economic organisation. The strengths of networks as opposed to other mechanisms of socio-economic coordination, like markets and hierarchies, in organising inter-firm relationships are also considered, along with cooperation and trust between main firms and their subcontractors and suppliers, knowledge and innovation in networks, whether knowledge networks are effective as institutions, neural networks, venture capital and networking, and the evolution, biology, complexity, and self-organisation of networks.

Oxford University Press eBooks, Feb 20, 2003

This book brings some clarity to the discussion of networks. It tests the case as to whether it i... more This book brings some clarity to the discussion of networks. It tests the case as to whether it is possible to construct a clearly demarcated idea of a ‘network’ as a separable form of socio-economic coordination and governance mechanism with its own distinctive logic. In doing this, the primary contrast is to markets and hierarchies as alternative and already well-understood forms of such socio-economic coordination each with its own particular logic. Thus, the focus is on the domain of the socio-economic (which includes political aspects of networks), and it is about the organisational domain of the socio-economic. A distinction is made between network as a conceptual category and network as a social organisation. Three approaches to networks are considered: social network analysis, transaction cost analysis, and actor-network theory. Finally, the book explores the whole area of information and communications technology and networks and how they are argued to be radically transforming the nature of international relations.

Cambridge University Press eBooks, Mar 28, 1997

11 GLOBALIZATION IN QUESTION: INTERNATIONAL ECONOMIC RELATIONS AND FORMS OF PUBLIC GOVERNANCE Pau... more 11 GLOBALIZATION IN QUESTION: INTERNATIONAL ECONOMIC RELATIONS AND FORMS OF PUBLIC GOVERNANCE Paul Hirst and Grahame Thompson INTRODUCTION " Globalization" has become an increasingly fashionable concept in the so-cial sciences. It ...

Globalization and Social Change, 2003