The important focus of attention generated by the actor-network concepts, is on the emergence and growth of actor-network collectives taken to be originated by some local entrepreneur(s), constituted into local collectives and expanded - sometimes even into global networks with dramatic influences on societies. What characterizes such a process of expansion?
Well, it may now be seen as a process of translation (enrollment). On the one hand, there are the actions of actors which generate creative, interacting activities aimed at shaping, extending, creating support for and expanding the entire collective through enrollment of non-members. On the other, there is competition, rivalry and conflict between collectives that are engaged in the remaking of the same elements of society in accordance with different conceptualizations and programs. The expansion of a collective is accordingly seen in a politics-like or a war-like metaphor where elements of society are to be conquered and re-shaped in conflict with other collectives.
Through simplification (enrollment) of other networks, collectives are capable of linking to each other in complex and differentiated ways in such a way as to influence each others strength and to use each other for the fulfillment of mutually modified programs in conflict with collectives which reject simplification/enrollment. In addition to traditional concepts of alliances, the actor-network concept focuses both the differences of perspective and purpose hold by the allied parties and the mutual qualitative transformation of content involved in alliance-making as a necessary ingredient in real-life remaking of society processes. The outcome of a large scale remaking of society process should accordingly not be seen as the result of one single conceptually unified program, but as the result of mediated programs of different collectives which have engaged in the process in order to fulfill a variety of objectives.
The creation of new allies is related by Latour to the affiliation between new actants and what he calls “immutable mobiles”, which represent the “core simplified concept” of the actor-network. These are series of simplified and unchangeable elements which defines the uniqueness of the actor-network;
the explanatory device that essentially distinguish the member from the
member. In order to expand, the actor-network has to be attractive to non-members or forceful so that those who are on the outside get on the inside.
The actual act of being a member is seen as taking place through
”obligatory passage points” of the specific actor-network which constitutes the new actant through the affiliation between the new member and the immutable mobile.
The “weapons” of these kind of “battles” for members are taken to be
“inscriptions” - that are basic simplified statements, models or visualizations which represent the objective of the actor-network as well as rationality, truth, efficiency etc. that are used as rhetorical devices. These inscriptions can also be “loaded” with technologies and institutional elements, seen as affiliations between the content of the immutable mobiles and specific non-human actants that are mobilized through actions intended to increase the transformative power of the inscription. The activities of actor-networks of this type has to do with the production of convictions, authority and power in order to expand (translate) the immutable mobiles into new “territories”
and to create stronger associations between its members.
Figure 2.5. The expansion of a collective through translation
Expanding collective
1
2
3 (3)
I.M. = Immutable mobile 1: Persuasion
2: Intention of becoming a member in the expanding collective 3: Association and translation of non-member into collective
The expansion of a collective, is accordingly defined on the basis of a variety of additional analytical concepts, like ”immutable mobiles”,
”inscriptions”, technological and institutional ”loads”, ”associations” and
”translation/enrollment”. These are all analytical statements which jointly constitute a toolbox for empirical investigations into how entrepreneurial collectives expand and thereby may radically transform elements of their environments.
2.2.1 The concept of representation, and the role of delegation in the expansion of collectives
An important aspect of the theory of actor-networks is added from Latour’s attempt at incorporating a historical account of relativity theory (Latour, 1988 and Latour, 1996b). The basic idea is that the perspective of an actor depends on his position within some stabilized actor-network and that an actor-network always constitute a relative local phenomenon from which you can only escape by shifting to another actor-network which is also a local phenomenon. There is no position on the outside of any actor-network
Inscriptions
I.M.
Core I.M
New member I.M.
Non-member
from where one may overview the world and act upon it. The overview and the powers of some actor is accordingly always limited.
Recognizing this relativistic insight has two important implications. First, if a collective shall be able to expand beyond the limits of the overview and powers of its enunciators, it has to produce durable representations of its program and its powers in entities which can serve as delegates in the expansionary process. The production of such delegates becomes a crucial condition for expansion. Without such representations, the program cannot expand into additional localities and will remain a local phenomenon with limited capacity to remake society. Investigations into the Norwegian electricity market reform accordingly have to dwell with the generation and linking up by its entrepreneurs with adequate representatives of their program.
Secondly, there is always the possibility that actions taken at the outside of the overview and the powers of some collective, will interfere into its “local world” and thereby introduce what will be perceived of as a chance event which may substantially influence on the outcome of the remaking of society process in which the collective is engaged. Hence, chance events are not just stochastic. They follow from the limited overview and the power-constraints of local collectives.
Chance events not only follow as a consequence of programmatic differences, but also as a consequence of time, because the intersection of two collectives at two different points in time will provide different conditions for choices and actions by the actors, which will of course lead to different outcomes. Time is accordingly likely to constitute a crucial strategic variable to collectives engaged in the remaking of society.
2.2.2 The concept of power in actor-network theory
The actor-network theory offers the opportunity to rephrase traditional questions of social order, stability and change, and in particular questions about the origins of and durability of domination of power. Social theory has always been concerned with the definition of power relations, and there exist a substantial number of such. What has been achieved however, are primarily conceptions of power relations which stems from their structural character. It is however difficult from these definitions to see how domination is achieved in the first place. This is what is offered by the actor-network concept of power. The actor-actor-network theory offers the possibility of holding both human and non-human elements of society together as a durable whole and thereby to define power as a function of this “holding together”.
The underlying simplified principle is illustrated by Latour (1991) by showing that the force by which a speaker makes a statement is never enough to predict the path of action that will follow from the statement. It depends on what successive listeners do to the statement. The speaker can try to make sure that every listener interprets the statement the same way, that is, to make sure that the correspondence between the linguistic and the content of meaning is standardized. Or, he can support his statement with further loads like adding certain technological devices or institutional arrangements to it. How much loads he will have to add largely depends on the listeners’ resistance or ignorance, carelessness or mood, and on their cleverness. Hence, the program of the speaker counters an anti-program of the listeners, which in order to be overturned generates an anti-anti program by the speaker intended to convince or force the listeners to conform to specific acts in line with the statement. It is only when most of these anti-programs are countered that the statement can generate predictable acts in concordance with the statement.
Through this process, the statement has been transformed into a much more complex system with persuasive powers far beyond that of the initial statement. Also the speaker, the listeners and the elements included have been transformed into a new juxtaposition which can now be characterized by some durable power structure. The speaker here holds the role as the enunciator of the actor-network who’s statement becomes reality by the adding of means of transportation of the statement and through the transformations of actors that are undergone in the process. Rather than focusing the division between society and the theoretical superstructure that can be extracted from it, the concept focuses the division between naked and loaded statements as the main ingredient in the formation of power.
To investigate the power of an actor-network accordingly involves the evaluation of the program of action of the enunciator of the actor-network, seen as different means of transportation (loads) of its programmatic statement in terms of associations between the statement and different non-human actants that are intended to expand the actor-network by including more actors into conformity with the statement. Power is not the property of any one particular of those elements, but of the aggregated chain of elements. During the process of transformation, different human and non-human elements are turned into associated entities by the accumulated actions of the enunciator, into different degrees of attachment and into associations which can be reallocated either because the enunciator stops reproducing his actions of power or because the entity is challenged from another actor-network.
This conceptual understanding links power to the continuous efforts to expand the actor-network by means of applying new acts (loads). “The understanding that there exist some state in which the internal force of innovations are irreversible and would expand through society by their own steam, is simply dissolved” (Latour 1991: 118). Nothing becomes real to the extent that it does not need an actor-network to keep up its existence. Every innovation has to hold on to all those people, institutions, organizations and technologies that themselves hold on to the innovation.
This also accounts for the breakdown of power caused by the rejection of anyone of the core actants of the actor-network - either because of strong anti-programs encountered or because simplified elements are forced into unmanageable complexity through real-life tests. Such events cause a breakdown of power - and as a consequence - of the collective itself as the
“holding together” is falling apart.
The conception of power as something which is generated in the interaction of programs, anti-programs, anti-anti-programs etc. points to possibilities for modifications and negotiations which are not only tied on to the exchange of benefits or utilities. Negotiations also involve the powers of conviction and the ability to produce “loads” of persuasion. To investigate the expansion of some collective, accordingly, has to do with investigating its construction of acts and loads of persuasion aimed at including more actor-networks, and its efforts to undermine core concepts in the program of rival collectives in order to force a breakdown in their powers.
This implies that the ability of a program to counter an anti-program also depends on how well an actor’s conceptions of others corresponds to their conceptions about themselves. If the difference is large, the actor will populate his world with actors that behave in - for him - unpredictable ways by apparently leaving and entering his network arbitrarily. The larger the difference, the more substantial must be the “loads” mobilized and the more likely will be a breakdown of the program or a substantial modification through negotiations with the anti-programs. The innovative entrepreneurial collective may accordingly arrive at a compromise solution and progressively change its political-sociological interpretations and associations as well as the shape of the innovative devices or systems they develop.
2.2.3 The concept of rivalry across frontlines
The “frontline” model presented by Latour (1991:107) may also be useful to illustrate the rivalry between a collective with some specific program of
action, and another collective with some specific anti-program of action. The program is located to the left and the anti-program to the right.
Figure 2.6. The frontline model
AND
(actants)
program: anti-program:
(1) e: A |||||||| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
(2) e: B |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
(3) e: C ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
(4) e: D ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||| |||||||||||
Frontline
OR (acts/loads) Source: Latour, 1991:107
The OR dimension represents various acts (B, C, D, etc.) which the enunciator (e) can add to his simple statement (A) in order to counter the anti-programs of his rival. The AND dimension represents the actants of the rival actor-network which are the objects for association and transformation.
By using the resources and the powers he controls - whether financial, institutional, technological or scientific - to invent and add new acts (loads), the program is gradually capable of expanding its “statement” by enrolling new actants into its own network; the number of actors that have attached themselves to the innovation. The point of view is here taken to be the enunciator of the expanding actor-network. A similar model could of course be drawn which focuses the viewpoint of the rival. Hence, in case an act is overturned by the anti-program, the frontline will move to the left rather than to the right. The selection of and adding of new acts accordingly takes the form of a continuous testing of the capability of the program to make and remake society by overturning its anti-programs.
2.3 The concept of ontological stability as an approach to