Political Species: The Evolution and Diversity of Private Organizations in Politics [1 ed.] 1032080175, 9781032080178

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Political Species

In Political Species, Karsten Ronit expertly argues that evolutionary biology can provide important sources of inspiration for analyzing the proliferation of private actors/organizations in domestic and global politics. Focusing on the evolution of a diversity of such private actors/organizations in politics, Ronit emphasizes that individuals are affected by and contribute to societal, cultural, and political evolution through a range of formal organizations and that societies, cultures, and politics influence and build upon values and norms transmitted by individuals via these formal organizations. By being mindful of these contextual factors and keeping in mind the important research done in the micro- and macro-perspectives, we can gain a better understanding of the diversity of private actors/organizations and how they evolve and adapt. Evolutionary biology teaches us that over time, different varieties emerge, specialize, and adapt to the ever-changing conditions in complex environments before accumulating into new species. Much change characterizes these processes of political evolution because actors constantly emerge and add to the existing population of private actors that, in one way or another, are engaged in politics. Karsten Ronit is Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Copenhagen, Denmark. He has broad competence in the study of organized interests with special expertise in business and employer associations, civil society organizations, and other intermediary institutions. He takes an interest in the comparative aspects of politics and business and examines how business and civil society operate in different national contexts. He is also engaged in projects examining the behavior of business and civil society organizations at the international level. He has published in a number of international journals, contributed to many books, and more recently published the monographs Global Business Associations (Routledge, 2018) and The Governance of Global Industry Associations: The Role of Micro-Politics (Edward Elgar, 2022).

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Political Species

The Evolution and Diversity of Private Organizations in Politics Karsten Ronit

First published 2024 by Routledge 605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158 and by Routledge 4 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2024 Karsten Ronit. The right of Karsten Ronit to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. ISBN: 978-1-032-08017-8 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-032-08019-2 (pbk) ISBN: 978-1-003-21254-6 (ebk) DOI: 10.4324/9781003212546 Typeset in Times New Roman by Apex CoVantage, LLC

Contents

List of illustrations Preface List of abbreviations 1

Introduction—setting the scene

vii viii x 1

Micro, macro, and meso approaches 2 Species in biology 7 The challenges of translation 10 The diversity of political species 12 Overview of chapters 15 2

Evolution—analyzing gradual changes

20

Biological perspectives 21 Reflections and translations 26 Applications 31 Conclusion 38 3

Ecology—accounting for wholes

40

Biological perspectives 41 Reflections and translations 46 Applications 51 Conclusion 58 4

Biogeography—studying large spaces Biological perspectives 62 Reflections and translations 68 Applications 73 Conclusion 79

61

vi

Contents

5

Niche—exploring small spaces

82

Biological perspectives 83 Reflections and translations 88 Applications 93 Conclusion 99 6

Competition—researching multiple interactions

102

Biological perspectives 103 Reflections and translations 108 Applications 113 Conclusion 120 7

Adaptation—examining vital adjustments

123

Biological perspectives 124 Reflections and translations 129 Applications 135 Conclusion 141 8

Taxonomy—organizing evolutionary diversity

144

Biological perspectives 145 Reflections and translations 151 Applications 156 Conclusion 163 9

Conclusion—combining conceptual insights

165

Analogies revisited 166 Toward a unified approach 167 Time, space, and species count 169 The individual concepts and their distinct contributions 171 The diversity of roots in market and civil society 173 Challenges ahead 176 Bibliography Index

178 201

Illustrations

Figures 1.1 2.1 2.2 3.1 3.2 4.1 4.2 5.1 6.1 7.1 7.2 8.1 8.2

Species, time, and space The horseshoe crab—unusual stability over evolutionary time Time and level in the evolution of political species Water on a leaf—a fundamental abiotic factor in the life of species Political species in an ecological perspective Biogeographic regions on a single continent Biogeography: translations to geographic spaces and political species Different bird species—different niches One form of competition—direct competition among common red deer Mimicry: the case of Pachythelia Villosella Adaptation: general and specific adaptation forms Darwin’s tree of life—the first version A taxonomic sketch of private organizations as political species

16 23 30 45 50 63 72 84 105 127 134 149 155

Tables 5.1 6.1

Niche: small spaces and political species Competition—and cooperation: interactions and political species

92 113

Preface

This book has both a long and a short history. First to the long history. For many years, I have held a strong interest in the role of private organizations in political life. I have noticed repeatedly, however, that research tends to be very compartmentalized. There are specialized communities for the different categories of organizations in this book labeled political species, and few attempts have been made to bring them together in an integrated analysis to investigate their similarities and differences. Likewise, the focus on contemporary actors and activities is dominant in research. Private organizations, however, have interesting roots, showing that they have evolved over time and that they are evolutionarily connected. Without this perspective, it is very difficult to reach a profound understanding of private organizations. Research on private organizations is clearly in need of inspiration to recognize their diversity and evolution. A promising source of inspiration is available in biology, but we must be careful when transferring such ideas. Many years ago, I noticed the scholarly interest in such endeavors, but it was not until around 15 years ago that I began to take a closer look at this literature. On closer inspection, however, this literature has several deficiencies, and one of the major shortcomings is that scholars today do not really consult the original biological tradition and use only a few of the many available concepts to study the evolution and diversity of private organizations as political species. To use this rich pool of knowledge, I realized that it was necessary to access the biological tradition, especially evolutionary biology, and accordingly, I have spent many years on this project, seeking relevant concepts and contemplating their transfer to the realm of private organizations in politics. This was the long history. Now to the short history. After a contract was signed with the publisher in spring 2021, concrete work on this book began in late 2021, right after I had submitted another book manuscript (The Governance of Global Industry Associations: The Role of Micro-Politics) to Edward Elgar, and I had the first draft ready around one year later. This version has since been subject to several revisions, both concerning the overall organization of the book and the many details of the arguments in the individual chapters. Over the years, I have

Preface ix benefited from conversations with numerous colleagues and co-workers, especially in the social and political sciences, but also from exchanges with many biologists and naturalists, who have helped me form opinions about the role of private organizations in politics and how “strange” ideas from biology can be applied. In the final stages of the work, funding and support from the San Cataldo Institution and from the JP Fond have further enabled me to concentrate on the manuscript during research trips to Italy and Germany. I will also use the opportunity to thank people and sources who have made some of the images available for this book. The image used for Chapter 5 comes from B. Cornell (2016) and can be found at the “BioNinja website,” accessed on 29 April 2023. Special thanks also go to ©The Trustees of the Natural History Museum, London (Chapter 2), to nature photographer Lars Krabbe (Chapter 6), and to lepidopterist Morten TopJensen (Chapter 7) for permission to use their photos. I am grateful for insightful and valuable comments from two anonymous reviewers, and I would finally like to express my thanks to the publisher and its staff, including Natalja Mortensen, Charlie Baker, and Charlotte Christie, for advice and encouragement. Karsten Ronit Berlin-Prenzlauer Berg August 2023

Abbreviations

AFEI AI AIIA AMA ATA BIAC CFDT CFR CFTC CGT CI CIIA CIOMS ECSC EEC EU FO GSC ICC ICIJ ICRC IDU INGO IOE IUCN

Australian Federation of Employers and Industries Amnesty International Australian Institute of International Affairs Australian Medical Association Atlantic Treaty Association Business at OECD/Business and Industry Advisory Committee to the OECD Confédération Française Démocratique du Travail (French Democratic Confederation of Labour) Council of Foreign Relations Confédération Française des Travailleurs Chrétiens (French Confederation of Christian Workers) Confédération Générale du Travail (General Confederation of Labour) Consumers International Canadian Institute of International Affairs Council for International Organizations of Medical Sciences European Coal and Steel Community European Economic Community European Union Confédération Générale du Travail—Force Ouvrière (General Confederation of Labor) Global Solar Council International Chamber of Commerce International Consortium of Investigative Journalists The International Committee of the Red Cross International Democrat Union International Non-Governmental Organization International Organization of Employers International Union for Conservation of Nature

Abbreviations xi Keidanren NATO OECD OSF PJ RCOA RS SBS SI SUD UK UN UNHCR US VR/AR WEF WHO WKO WMA

Japan Business Federation North Atlantic Treaty Organization Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development Open Society Foundations Partido Justicialista Nacional de la República Argentina. Refugee Council of Australia Refugee Support Special Broadcasting Service Socialist International Solidaires Unitaires Démocratiques United Kingdom United Nations United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees United States Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality Association World Economic Forum World Health Organization Die Wirtschaftskammer Österreich (Austrian Economic Chambers) World Medical Association

1

Introduction—setting the scene

To advance the study of private organizations in politics, it would seem most obvious to consult the pertinent literature within the social and political sciences, which offers interesting sources of guidance. However, many important and unexploited insights can actually be gleaned from outside these scholarly traditions, and such fresh insights can invigorate research. This book argues that the discipline of biology, especially evolutionary biology, including fields such as evolutionary ecology, offers fertile ground for inspiration. In many ways, this tradition can assist us in analyzing the evolution and diversity of private actors in politics. Private organizations such as political parties, associations, movements, professional societies, political clubs, think tanks, and foundations are examples of organizations that tend to be structured in a collective framework or otherwise rely on various kinds of coordination among members, supporters, and donors, and they can all play important roles in the organization and representation of various group interests in society. Also other entities, such as public affairs agencies and law, accounting, and consulting firms, that either provide various services to these organizations or play an independent role in politics without relying on collective decision-making per se, must be included, and to that end, a number of biological concepts, are helpful. In the scholarly community, these different actors are not equally attended to and recognized, and it can be difficult to understand the multiple functions they serve. They are further given many names, with the conceptual language often varying significantly across disciplines, across countries, and across historical time. This fragmentation suggests that it can be theoretically complicated and empirically challenging to accommodate such actors in an integrated analysis, but this is needed if we want to reach a better understanding of this diverse category, here treated under the generic term “private organizations.” Essentially, these actors are all rooted in the organization of markets and of civil societies, and many of them are intimately connected, while others are only distantly related.

DOI: 10.4324/9781003212546-1

2

Introduction—setting the scene

Evolutionary biology, which emphasizes the common origin of species, their diverse paths, and their complex relations, offers a promising perspective for analyzing such private actors. Evolutionary biology teaches us that over time, varieties of species emerge, specialize, and adapt to the ever-changing conditions in their environment, leading, in some cases, to new full species. Much change also characterizes the processes of political evolution. Actors emerge or perish, and in this process, they alter the existing community population of private organizations that in one way or another are engaged in politics. Thus, species in nature have many parallels with the various private organizations in domestic and global politics. Different evolutionary ideas from biology have already been applied in the social and political sciences, and in the next section of this chapter, we discuss some of these major applications and explain how the approach taken in this book differs from existing perspectives. We further clarify what the general species concept implies in a biological context and discuss how it can be translated to our particular purpose, which is by no means an easy exercise, and a number of caveats are consequently needed to avoid absurdities. We then turn toward the broad and diverse body of private organizations that are the foci of this study, and we seek to characterize them and define their role, but this general sketch will be followed up in individual chapters with more concrete examples related to each of the different concepts. Admittedly, some contributions in the social and political sciences have tried to grapple with these actors by seeking inspiration from biology, but only some actors have been addressed, and only certain ideas from biology have been picked up. Indeed, it is clear that there is a huge and unexploited potential for evolutionary thinking. The chapter finishes with an overview of the book, where the key concepts forming the basis of each of the chapters will be presented. Micro, macro, and meso approaches Before turning to approaches developed at different levels of investigation, it is important to recognize a basic line of conflict. Indeed, some versions and interpretations of evolutionary theory have been highly controversial and have often been associated with so-called social Darwinism. In these debates, some scholars have historically used the authority of Charles Darwin to highlight the “survival of the fittest” and legitimize certain social orders, or at least they have been seen by critics as mechanically using certain natural laws to explain human societies and thus replacing scientific inquiry with political dogma. Many problems have definitely complicated these debates and inquiries. Concepts such as “survival,” “selection,” and “fitness” can have different meanings, and there are many aspects related to the conditions of species in nature (Darwin 1859; Schmalhausen 1946; Mayr 1982: 477–534; Kauffman 1993; Haffer 2006)1 not to mention the difficulties of using these notions to understand human societies. These huge debates have important historical roots, with important advances in

Introduction—setting the scene 3 the late nineteenth century (Mayr 1982: 112–132; Gould 2002: 93–169; Bowler 2003), but although these issues are today addressed in more sophisticated ways, they nevertheless have conflict potential. A side effect of this debate is no doubt some hesitance on the side of social and political scientists to look for inspiration in biology, and perhaps even a fear of falling into an ideological trap. However, the book has been closed too early. Rejections are often too unspecific and premature and do not consider the many nuanced discussions and prospective applications. There is a risk that general criticism may block further dialogue around big issues as well as specific concepts, impeding a constructive evaluation of potentials and pitfalls. In spite of various reservations, we do in fact find a number of interesting contributions in the social and political sciences, and to put this study into context, it is necessary to relate it to existing traditions that wrestle with evolutionary problems and have tried to translate this thinking. Scholars familiar with or actively involved in some of these traditions will perhaps expect that the present analysis will, or even should, enroll in the further development of these traditions. This is not the ambition, however. As we shall see, the major existing approaches tend to raise other kinds of questions and to nest analyses at other levels of inquiry than intended here. These approaches are visible and have evolved in two related ways: Biologists have extended the scope of their research to embrace problems outside nature, and social and political scientists have drawn on ideas beyond their established fields; but these groups of scholars are not equally active, and contributions have primarily come from the latter group of researchers.2 To explain this in further detail, we may distinguish between micro, macro, and meso approaches, and this clarification of analytical levels of investigation helps us explain what this book is about and what it is not about. First, some studies apply elements of evolutionary theory to the social and political world and are focused on various micro phenomena. In these cases, the analytical unit is the behavior of the human species, and in many ways, it is quite straightforward to transfer ideas from biology, where the human species is also a key unit of analysis. Because the concept of species embraces all living organisms, a specific effort, however, must be made to define human behavior in particular and relate it to politics. This micro-oriented literature is difficult to categorize, but we find some major patterns in the emphasis on either the genetic dimension or the social dimension. Some contributions posit that genetic properties are key to understanding behavior. They may drive selfish or altruistic behavior with the effect that such innate traits of species influence social evolution and in a wider perspective have implications for politics. This tradition is often labeled “sociobiology” (Wilson 1975; Hatemi and McDermott 2011) and is especially related to genetics and to varying degrees also to neurology as biological subdisciplines (Alford, Funk, and Hibbing 2005), but contributions may use different terminology to characterize

4

Introduction—setting the scene

human behavior. This research is primarily interested in the structuring of different forms of behavior, and although evolution is an overall theme, certain issues, such as the differentiation and emergence of new species, are not considered. In a number of cases, cooperation has developed between biologists and political scientists, and the study of genetic and social aspects can be combined (Axelrod and Hamilton 1981). Emphasis may be shifted toward behavior under the impact of environmental factors. Other studies, therefore, tend to analyze the evolution of cooperation as a social and interactive process, and, although the role of genetics is not forgotten, greater weight is attributed to environmental factors in the shaping of “social species” (Lewontin, Rose, and Kamin 1984). In these perspectives, other-regarding behavior is not the result of pure self-interest but driven by the essential social capacities of humans. Through reiterated games (Axelrod 1984), people learn and adapt, but through history, humans have also been endowed with the capacity to engage in reciprocal cooperation (Bowles and Gintis 2011). The understanding of human behavior is not necessarily framed in terms of games, and we also find contributions to human behavior that are more actively linked to the evolution of culture (Waring and Wood 2021), a point we will return to shortly. Indeed, scholars concerned with genetic aspects also seek to embrace the proliferation of beliefs, habits, and norms, which mirror or correct human behavior and are important in the evolution of cultures (Dawkins 2006). Studies following a micro approach highlight the genetic and social dimensions of the human species but draw on experiences beyond biology. They further build on input from economics and psychology, where there is an equal emphasis on individual behavior and also on various cross-overs between economics, psychology, political science, and sociology, without each of these necessarily being informed by evolutionary biology and its various concepts. These disciplines can all be helpful in developing the micro approaches briefly sketched here, but they also offer inspiration for and can to varying degrees link up with macro approaches. Second, some analyses are concerned with a range of macro phenomena and apply evolutionary concepts from biology to such studies or use evolutionary thinking in a broader sense. This suggests that the unit of analysis also takes the form of states, nations, societies, cultures, empires, and civilizations, which all manifest highly aggregated human behavior and therefore deserve corresponding analytical strategies (Mesoudi 2011; Lindenfors, Jansson, and Sandberg 2011; Morris 2013; Somit and Peterson 2003). To varying degrees, individual human behavior and the various systems in which it is embedded are considered in such works (Boyd and Richerson 1985; Gintis, Van Schaik, and Boehm 2015) and testify to the overlap between micro and macro approaches. The larger cultural, societal, and political contexts can be seen as a driving force and can be studied in their own right to understand both historical and contemporary contexts.

Introduction—setting the scene 5 Eventually, the performance of these different macro entities will, somewhat akin to species in evolution,3 lead to their survival or extinction—and adaptation of some kind (Vanberg and Kerber 1994). History is rich with examples, and there are recurring questions as to whether some systems are more advanced than others and whether they are inclined to follow specific historical trajectories. We often have to do with changes on a grand scale, such as economic, social, or demographic transformations (Turchin 2018), and the literature not only reports change but also seeks to formulate predictions. Studies guided by different macro perspectives are especially found in disciplines for branches of history, economics, anthropology, and political science, and this kind of work tends to have an interdisciplinary character and grapples with broader issues of humankind. In a similar vein, research on the evolution of institutions examines how societies, or certain policy fields, issues, or bodies, are regulated through complex rules and norms (Thelen 1999), typically devised by various public authorities or adopted through negotiated compromise involving different actors in society. These themes may sound familiar and belong to the many standard topics in the social and political sciences, and institutions may be scrutinized using ideas from evolutionary thinking (Currie, Campenni, Flitton et al. 2021), but there is considerable variation as to whether concepts from biology are actively employed to examine institutional developments. In the tradition of “historical institutionalism,” studies have, with a few exceptions (Lewis and Steinmo 2010; Streeck 2018), not explicitly drawn on evolutionary theory as formulated in biology, although this is an obvious source of knowledge. In fact, the feature of evolutionary perspectives does not necessarily imply an explicit translation and application of biological concepts. Interesting contributions have, however, laid out a framework for “evolutionary institutionalism” (Lempp and Patzelt 2007: 375–414; Fürstenberg 2016), which is related to but different from “historical institutionalism,” and thus there is a good potential for studying institutions from an evolutionary perspective. So far, we have dealt with the micro and macro approaches and briefly shown how ideas in evolutionary biology are transferred to study particular analytical levels. To a different extent, this thinking has been applied to branches of economics, psychology, anthropology, sociology, archaeology, history, and political science. In addition to these micro and macro levels of investigation, we suggest a further approach that, in some ways, is related to these ambitions and traditions but also has an independent status. Third, this study centers on a different level of phenomena and thus applies a meso approach. By focusing on the many and diverse private organizations in political life, this book analyzes the emergence, proliferation, and differentiation of private political actors that are based on various kinds of collective or otherwise coordinated forms of action. In other words, the analysis is anchored above the micro level of humans but below the macro level of political systems, societies, cultures, and civilizations.

6

Introduction—setting the scene

By adopting such an intermediate approach, the current study focuses on the evolution of a diversity of private organizations whose pathways, properties, and relations are not fully understood. Only a relatively small branch of research has in some way taken inspiration from evolutionary biology to analyze various kinds of organizations. In organization and management theory, attempts have been made to advance research in many directions and examine different aspects of organizational activity, including classifying organizations (McKelvey 1982), analyzing populations (Hannan and Freeman 1977), mapping resources (Pfeffer and Salancik 1978), investigating changes (Baum and Amburgey 2017), and understanding environments (Aldrich and Ruef 2006). Such contributions have drawn attention in certain areas of the social and political sciences and have also been applied to study various interest groups (Gray and Lowery 1996b; Lowery, Halpin, and Gray 2015). In relevant places, parts of this research will be considered in the individual chapters. Although these studies and theories bring many interesting insights, they suffer from certain weaknesses in the context of this particular project. First, the overwhelming majority of this research is not targeted at private organizations in politics but grapples theoretically with organizations in a very wide sense. Second, this tradition is empirically strong in the analyses of firms active in markets, but problems related to these specific actors also tend to define general theories. Third, in the case where the role of private organizations in politics is actually reviewed, only some groups of organizations and activities receive attention. Fourth, studies of these groups of private organizations tend to be occupied with this particular group, while relations with other kinds of organizations are weakly marked. Fifth, organization theory with an original inspiration in evolutionary biology seems to have developed its own traditions and to a modest degree accesses contributions from evolutionary biology. Sixth, only selected concepts in evolutionary biology are considered and applied, but a host of concepts are actually available to describe and analyze private organizations. Organization and management theories are seemingly more palatable for social and political scientists in their search for approaches to organizational evolution, but such theories inadequately reflect and translate the biological tradition. Given these limitations, a new and systematic effort is needed to take advantage of a wider set of ideas from evolutionary biology in the study of private organizations. Accordingly, we need to consult this literature directly, extract major ideas, and translate them to our concrete purpose. The private entities to which we refer build on very different kinds of action. Some organizations rely on advanced forms of cooperation, an enduring feature of formal organizations with complex decision-making structures and diverse relations to actors in their environment, while others act as corporations specialized in politics but also with solid organizations behind them. Multiple species that in one way or another are involved in political life will therefore be embraced, but the role of firms poses a specific challenge and should be

Introduction—setting the scene 7 briefly addressed. It can be argued that in different market economies, firms make independent decisions and therefore represent a kind of authority that also has political implications, and, in fact, some firms dispose of considerable economic resources (Lindblom 1977; Fuchs 2007; Mikler 2018). These are valid arguments. However, the majority of firms are not established with a clear and unequivocal ambition to influence policies and the political order. Hence, we shall include corporations that have such purposes, which, of course, can be expressed in multiple ways. Making such distinctions is complicated because boundaries are not distinct but fluid and fluctuating. Indeed, changes play an important role, and like many other organizations, private organizations have become rather solid entities. Indeed, “just as the forests and fields of the physical environment are being replaced be streets and skyscrapers, the primordial institutions around which societies have developed are being replaced by purposively constructed social organizations” (Coleman 1990: xv). Although the growth and renewal of this diversity of formal organizations is significant, the activity of such organizations goes far back in time, and in many respects, it is possible to trace the roots of current organizations back to earlier kinds of organizations. These different intermediary actors are in multiple ways related to the macro level above and the micro level below. This implies that individuals are both affected by and contribute to economic, social, and political evolution through a range of formal organizations, and, in turn, that societies, cultures, and politics both influence and build upon values and norms transmitted via these formal organizations. However, the evolution of private organizations raises a number of specific questions that deserve independent scrutiny, and this is the key task of this study. Therefore, this book complements rather than competes with the various macro and micro approaches. Evolution is accomplished at different levels, and the ambition is neither to endorse nor to reject research guided by these other approaches but to include and qualify an additional layer. With this focus, the book contributes to a broader analysis of the value of biological concepts for the social and political sciences. Admittedly, research nested at the meso level, and actively applying evolutionary perspectives from biology, is much weaker developed than studies focused on the other levels; hence, a special effort is required to advance this approach. Before we can concentrate on private organizations, however, the first step is to briefly address the species concept in biology and discuss how it can be translated to private actors as political species, a research area beyond biology. Species in biology While the species concept may sound rather alien to the social and political sciences, the concept is central to biology. There is a rich discussion on its proper definition and application to nature, and this scholarly debate goes centuries

8

Introduction—setting the scene

back (Haffer 2006). However, much of the discussion in biology is internal to the discipline and, in many cases, has little or no relevance to other scientific disciplines. New advances within biology can be methodologically and technically sophisticated, but they will not necessarily bring greater changes in the basics of evolutionary theory, and they may also be so specific that they will be problematic to transfer. Therefore, the task is to sketch the major principles guiding the study of species, as defined in biology, and show how this thinking, with care, can be translated to examine political species. Of course, the full job cannot be done in the introduction, and different aspects of the complex species concept will be considered in the individual chapters. In terms of species, biologists will instantaneously associate species and the species concept with all kinds of living organisms, and there will be an understandable hesitance toward using experiences beyond these traditional fields. When social and political scientists with an interest in political species consult evolutionary biology, however, they discover a number of exciting opportunities. Delimiting species is at the very core of biological science, and it is a complex exercise. Indeed, “the difficulties encountered are a strong indication not only of the great diversity of population phenomena and of types of species found in nature, but, alas, also of much muddled thinking. It is evident that the word “species” has meant and still means different things to different people” (Mayr 1963: 15). This characterization is still valid today, although advances have been made in various directions. Before we go into a discussion of the concept and which criteria organizations must fulfill to gain species status, we can say a few words about the place of a species in the living world. A species is considered a component of all living beings, and therefore an individual species belongs to a hierarchically lower rank (taxon) than the more encompassing ranks (taxa) above it, such as “genera” and “family,” and even more inclusive ranks that bring together increasingly diverse groups of species. A species, therefore, has some unique properties that separate it from other more- or less-related species. Notwithstanding various disagreements, uncertainties, and priorities, the biological species concept emphasizes that individual organisms belonging to the same species can produce fertile offspring and, hence, continue evolutionary lineages, which are essential to survival as species. This definition has also been discussed, and it can be argued that there are some, often minor, exceptions to this general characterization that are valid for most species. The validity of the concept is also discussed in relation to such issues as asexual reproduction, dealt with under the concept of parthenogenesis, in relation to self-pollination in plants and in relation to hybridization (Wheeler and Meier 2000; Abbott, Ritchie, and Hollingsworth 2008). Successful reproduction in nature, however, is not the only criteria in the definition of biological species. It is further a key feature that organisms share essential parts of the genetic material, that they have basic morphological properties

Introduction—setting the scene 9 in common, that their physiology reveals how their body parts work in similar ways, and that they occupy equivalent spaces in nature. The genetic background gives us knowledge about the pool of traits that species are shaped by thorough ancestry, provides them with many fundamental characters, and distinguishes them from other kinds of species. The morphological dimension can give us knowledge about their basic structures, which are further related to the coordination of how their bodies work in their overall physiology. Finally, adaptations to different environments are crucial for species, as these offer variable conditions in their search for resources in competition and cooperation with other species. Together, such basic genetic, morphological, physiological, and environmental factors help us differentiate between species. To some degree, the emphasis on these different criteria is related to the specialization in biological science. There are many different subdisciplines, each with its own subject matter, key concepts, and elaborated theories. In addition, they are characterized by specific disciplinary developments, which implies that advances in the definition of species are uneven. Thus, geneticists tend to concentrate on the cell and molecular levels and apply methods other than, for instance, ecologists, who operate at more aggregated analytical levels, such as communities and ecosystems, which provide different sets of information on species. For an external observer, biology may appear rather monolithic, and compared to the social and political sciences, we can count on a higher degree of consensus, but a closer look at this research also exposes a number of conceptual differences. Indeed, even within the different subdisciplines, there can be various scholarly opinions, but knowledge can also be contradictory and prevent drawing firm conclusions. This reflects the complexity of the discipline and complicates the integration of experiences from different subdisciplines into a unified definition of species. For the purpose of our study, the criteria in the definition of species are all highly interesting and can serve as important inspirations, but some are easier to embrace and translate than others. These are intimately related, hard to separate, and have given rise to many historical and contemporary debates. A general lesson is that species are endowed with a range of shared properties, such as origin, structure, function, and behavior, that define them and separate them from other species along different gradients, and together these properties enable their existence in nature. A thorough evaluation of these criteria implies that we count in various dynamics. In fact, the proper study of species involves not only current species and their various roots but also the life of extinct species, as covered by the discipline of paleontology and its key principles (Simpson 1944; Gould 2002: 745–796). A strong interest in the historical dimension is required, and this is important to bear in mind when studying social and political phenomena, although the time frame here is, of course, considerably shorter than in nature,

10

Introduction—setting the scene

with a comparatively late formation of human societies not to speak of the relatively recent arrival of private organizations in politics. Another important dynamic is observable within species, which are not constant entities. Within species, we may find interesting variation among organisms that are exposed to different environments, and over time, smaller differences may accumulate to the effect that new species emerge. Therefore, the definition of species cannot be entirely settled through theoretical argument and clear-cut definitions, and species must be empirically examined in nature, thus offering complex material for classification and further theory building. The challenges of translation A careful reinterpretation and translation of ideas from evolutionary biology is useful to examine many social and political phenomena, and we will gain important guidance that is otherwise hard to obtain. Translation poses many challenges, though. When we bring different disciplines into contact, the essential job is not to compare and develop both disciplines or, for that matter, reach a better understanding of specific units of analysis within the biological and political domains. The translation is unidirectional. We use concepts and ideas from evolutionary biology to understand private organizations, but we do not seek inspiration in the social and political sciences to study various animal or plant communities as “political systems” with corresponding “political actors” in the form of animals and plants—nor is there the ambition to make predictions about private organizations on the basis of experiences from the natural world. The performance of species in politics is complex, and biology can only provide limited knowledge on their future existence and survival. Assisted by ideas and concepts developed within evolutionary biology, we can, however, examine the diversity of private organizations that historically have been engaged in politics or are currently active. The majority of scholars with a professional background in biology are not concerned with transferring traditions to other areas and generally adhere to their own subject field, wide or narrow, but the interest in such projects is stronger with regard to the micro level than to the macro level sketched above. There seems to be a greater ambition in the social and political sciences, or at least in some segments, to tap into perspectives offered in biology. Although some scholars are concerned with the translation of such ideas, they do not take a strong interest in translating the species concept per se, and species is, without further ado, equated with humans and thus different from our endeavor that sees private organizations as political species. Obviously, the unit of analysis, the different private organizations in political life, is not in any way similar to species examined in zoology and botany. Using an analogy to study private organizations as political species, we acknowledge

Introduction—setting the scene 11 that the transfer from biology to politics poses some key methodological problems (Patzelt 2017). In terms of analogy, different but related questions can be asked whether we want to study evolution beyond biology in broader terms, in particular branches of the social and political sciences, or with regard to specific kinds of actors (Peters 1980; McKelvey 1982; Prindle 2012; Van den Bergh 2018). Given these conditions, a translation of ideas and concepts must be accomplished through a series of steps involving the path from biology to the social and political sciences and the move from the social and political sciences to those private organizations that become involved in political activity. These translations must pay attention to complex factors in each of the steps and, therefore, address both general problems and tackle concrete empirical issues. A wholesale application of ideas and concepts is neither feasible nor desirable; indeed, it would both neglect the unique work done in biology and ignore the specific political context. Such a rigid exercise would do damage to the analysis of private organizations in politics, and we would be left with a caricature. Therefore, we are not working with a full analogy but a partial analogy—not only because the subject matters are different but also because not all the major ideas and concepts lend themselves to translation. Some are invalid and must be discarded, while others seem promising and demand further investigations, and in the following, we will briefly discuss some basic limitations and options. A major feature of living organisms is sexual reproduction, but various kinds of breeding and mating are not relevant in our case. This notion is not really possible to fruitfully develop, which is obviously an important reservation when transferring basic thoughts from biology. Instead of focusing on biological organisms, which could also involve humans, we take an interest in entities that are not physical persons but are generally organized as legal persons, although the formal character of private actors can vary significantly. While the organizations have no genetic ancestry, they certainly have important roots, and origin is one of the key dimensions that helps us classify private organizations. Historical roots are important, and in many ways, ancestral organizations pass on a variety of interests and values and assist in the creation of ever-new private entities without these being genetically coded. These roots are related to markets and civil society, which guide organizations, and this is another tool that enables us to distinguish major kinds of actors. The lack of a genetic dimension seems to have some consequences for the abundance of political species. In nature, the genetic pool is significant, forming new generations, but the various backgrounds of private organizations are shaped by other mechanisms that affect variation and deserve attention. Compared to the diversity of species in nature (Mayr 1982: 133–146; Wilson 2001: 33–46; Swingland 2013),4 the number of these actors tends to be very limited but still complex enough to catalogue, as we will discuss in the following.

12

Introduction—setting the scene

In addition to their origin, private organizations can be distinguished through their different internal structures, their different resources and tasks, and their multiple interactions with the environment. In all these basic respects, it is possible to seek insights from biology, and to guide us, we draw on a number of key concepts from evolutionary biology. Some of them seem relatively familiar in the social and political sciences, such as the concept of adaptation, while others, such as the concept of biogeography, have rarely or never been addressed. And, if they have actually been applied, they have not been discussed in relation to the meso level and our specific unit of analysis but mainly or exclusively to the micro or macro levels, such as the concept of evolution, which has mainly been discussed in relation to human behavior or society. Even in cases where concepts have been applied to the meso level, only certain aspects have received attention, and the translation of ideas is fragmented. Therefore, a stronger and targeted utilization of major interrelated concepts is required, and they will be elicited from the pertinent biological literature, in each case demanding a careful translation. In essence, species in nature and in politics display many important differences, and this proviso is important in order not to invalidate the transfer of ideas from biology to the realm of politics. This said, it should be possible to follow the broader biological approach, center on some key organizational dimensions, and draw on the basic criteria in the definition of biological species outlined earlier. The diversity of political species Until now, we have sketched how and under which conditions ideas from the study of species in biology can be applied, and we have also provided some examples of actors that are eligible and that do not qualify for inclusion in the study of private organizations. We need, however, to further specify this diverse group of political species and discuss some of the problems that complicate the selection of organizations. Private organizations encompass a rich diversity of actors; some relate to politics, and some are not engaged in this activity, and it is only the former group of actors we are concerned with. In this study, private organizations with a permanent or temporary ambition, either rather implicit or explicitly expressed, but in certain cases concealed or even denied, are relevant to study as political species. Accordingly, their capacity to become involved in politics in a domestic or international context varies. Politics must not be understood in a very narrow and conventional sense, however. Accordingly, organizations rooted in market and civil society influence public policy in a rich variety of ways by either opposing, encouraging, or assisting initiatives or by creating their own ways of problem solving to prevent, postpone, or replace policies adopted in a traditional political framework, and, therefore, many activities unfold beyond formal political institutions.

Introduction—setting the scene 13 The organizations have a private origin and rely on different kinds of action. Essentially, they are related to two major subsystems—namely the market and civil society—and with this economic and social background, firms and citizens find a variety of formats to organize and represent preferences in political contexts. In other words, the market and civil society can be seen as pools from which to draw various interests, but the whole pools are not necessarily exploited, and not all areas of the pools are covered equally effectively, giving rise to the emergence of organizations with different roots, structures, tasks, and relations. The specific organization and coordination of interests are influenced by factors in the institutional environment, and these will have a direct or indirect impact on the formation and work of private organizations even if public institutions do not found or govern them in a strict sense. Thus, public institutions can encourage the creation of organizations and support them in various ways, but they can also influence the direction of concrete activities. They can further cultivate relations with certain organizations, grant them special rights, and integrate them into policymaking. In this process, private organizations may share responsibility for elements of public policy, and, of course, there is the ultimate risk that private organizations may lose their autonomy and be controlled by government, but it can be difficult to determine when they pass such a threshold. Nevertheless, such trajectories are important to keep in mind when studying the evolution of private organizations. By focusing on autonomous private organizations, we include experiences from countries and contexts where private organizations, in principle, are today free to establish and develop political activity. It is, however, hard to determine such boundaries because the conditions facing these organizations vary across institutional contexts and policy fields, and they are also changeable, but we largely refer to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries, which, after all, display a number of commonalities with regard to the role of private organizations. This does not suggest that evolutionary approaches are inapplicable beyond this framework, but some additional premises need to be established, and further theoretical developments are required for such analyses. With a particular concern for this group of countries, from which selected cases will be drawn, we are likely to find a comparatively high degree of diversity among private organizations, and this has some affinity with the basic condition in nature where there is no single power to manage the evolution of species. Nonetheless, this view on diversity does not imply that all private organizations will have equal opportunities or equal influence on politics. In brief, the study of private actors embraces a diversity of organizations. Although political parties are integrated into the functions of governments and parliaments, they are still private entities. The private status of actors is no doubt easier to recognize in the case of the many associations and movements that seek to organize a diversity of interests in society and, depending on their objectives

14

Introduction—setting the scene

and activities, tend to be less connected with official state bodies. The private character is perhaps also apparent in the case of many knowledge-based organizations, such as think tanks and foundations, which engage in public discourse but are furnished by private resources. Organizations managed as corporations, such as consulting firms, may also engage in political action as their primary purpose. They have the same tasks as many other private organizations mentioned here, and, therefore, important overlaps exist in their various missions, but they do not organize groups as such, and, thus, private organizations involved in political activities are underpinned by a variety of structures, a factor that complicates the definition of private organizations. The theoretical concepts employed to characterize them are equally diverse. While political parties are unsurprisingly studied under the label of “political parties” and in many ways form a specific subcategory of private organizations, the concepts used to describe and analyze other actors are numerous, capturing different features such as membership, funding, governance, or other properties. This might lead us to believe that we have to deal with very different entities, while in reality, different concepts are often used for the same kind of organizations, such as associations. First, a factor that complicates the development of a unified conceptual language is that organizations are approached from different theoretical angles and disciplines. Thus, political science, sociology, anthropology, economics, law, organization theory, and management science grapple to different extents with the organization of private interest in politics, and in these scholarly communities, multiple concepts are to be found. Within each of these major disciplines, we also find different conceptual traditions. A particular challenge is that scholars specializing in comparative politics tend to use different concepts for private organizations than researchers examining their role in international politics, and aligning these can be difficult. Second, the private organizations studied in this book are referred to in different ways in various geographic, cultural, and semantic contexts, and a major reason for the conceptual variation is that they occupy different roles in politics and that their positions are perceived differently. Therefore, it can be difficult to arrive at universally accepted concepts, and if we do, there is a risk that experiences and traditions in specific countries and cultures come to dominate such concepts, and, hence, variations are not sufficiently accounted for. These are challenges that have an impact on the viability and application of concepts, and they can complicate the identification and classification of political species. Third, throughout history, different kinds of organizations have expressed private concerns in politics. In the past, they were given different labels by their contemporaries, and also today, various concepts circulate. Some actors have become extinct, while others have survived, maybe under new names, reflecting

Introduction—setting the scene 15 new historical conditions and understandings of their role in politics. Furthermore, a variety of novel organizations have emerged, demanding their own vocabulary. These experiences can be difficult to summarize, but if we neglect historical organizations and practices, some of them still in existence, we fail to recognize the evolutionary character of species in politics. In fact, there are both important continuities and discontinuities in history that should be examined. In sum, research on private actors in politics bears strong witness to the fragmentation in empirical focus and conceptual language. Scholars tend to concentrate on a single type of actor, for instance, political parties, examining how this group of actors competes and cooperates, but tend to ignore other, related private actors in their environment, thus missing many important aspects of their evolution. In addition, the use of different concepts for the same or closely related organizations prevents an exchange of experiences and inhibits a dialogue that is otherwise needed to address problems of joint concern. After all, the carving out and attribution of the same concepts are required to define political species and systematically organize knowledge. This includes both the recognition of similar properties and the identification of divergent features among private organizations. In an evolutionary perspective, the large and diverse community of private organizations has common roots, but, with the passing of time, these organizations specialize and enter into new kinds of relations with their environment through mutual adaptation. The goal is not to describe and analyze all of these actors and their evolution in minute detail but to highlight major categories of organizations active in contemporary politics. Overview of chapters We can now turn toward the specific concepts taken from evolutionary biology and translated to politics, following the meso approach, especially to the diversity of private organizations. Obviously, not all the literature on evolutionary biology is applicable to political science, and not all concepts and principles are relevant. Therefore, a critical reading of both classic and current works is essential to identifying significant ideas and concepts. The main body of this book includes three interconnected themes that are placed in a deliberate order. The first theme highlights the time dimension (Chapter 2) because species in nature and in politics are tied to and must always be understood in the context of time. The second major theme seeks to place species in relation to the space dimension because they always emerge in and unfold activity in relation to various kinds of space (Chapters 3, 4, and 5). Although the role of species is of course integrated in the discussion on time and space, we pay further attention to the species dimension (Chapters 6, 7, and 8), and species are neither in nature nor in politics alone but interact with other species in their environment. The complex interrelationships between private organizations as

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Introduction—setting the scene

political species, time, and space are shown in Figure 1.1, where different combinations of dimensions can also be examined. This book builds on a number of key concepts that all have a prominent place in evolutionary biology, providing new insights for this study. Each of these concepts offers novel insights into the evolution of organizations, but taken together, they yield an even stronger foundation for understanding the emergence, interaction, and adaptation of private actors. The concepts are intimately related, and some constructive overlaps are therefore both unavoidable and necessary to demonstrate the theoretical benefits of evolutionary biology when translated to a very different domain of science. The individual chapters will each consist of three parts: first, a presentation of the relevant concepts and some of the related sub-concepts as discussed in biology; second, a discussion of how existing research has grappled with these problems and how the particular concepts can be applied to private organizations; and third, some brief analyses of selected cases that cover different aspects of the concepts. Some cases scrutinize a particular organization, while others are concerned with a larger group of organizations, and although most concentrate on contemporary problems, some historical experiences will also be addressed. These smaller cases must primarily be seen as affirmative examples. This is a deliberate choice because the application of evolutionary thinking, moving it from one strand of research to another, has in many respects not been undertaken before. At first glance, the applicability of such ideas to private organizations may seem doubtful, and so it is in many ways more fascinating should these illustrations document the relevance of this reasoning. Of course, they do not deliver the final proof of the validity of biological ideas but rather provide promising evidence and encourage us to further qualify the cases.

Political Species: Private Organizations

Space Figure 1.1 Species, time, and space

Time

Introduction—setting the scene 17 After presenting the main argument, using guidance from evolutionary biology to analyze private organizations as political species, and discussing problems of application in Chapter 1, Chapter 2 is dedicated to the concept of evolution. The concept of evolution distinguishes among different kinds of evolution, and the chapter addresses the important factor of time. Thus, the emergence of organizations seems to follow a gradualist pattern, which involves slow, incremental changes rather than dramatic upheavals. Politics abounds with different kinds of private organizations, but none of these form constant groups, and we find a diversity of formal and often very established organizations, but we may also identify a range of new bodies formed over the course of time. These various entities adapt and go through different processes of co-evolution, where they adjust their behavior in relation to other actors and to the environment in general. In Chapter 3, the concept of ecology denotes the totality of species and their environments. The evolution of political species must always be considered from a holistic perspective because it enables us to examine the relationships among species and the different economic, social, and political conditions that confront them and influence their behavior and ultimate survival. Thus, an ecological perspective considers a variety of distant and proximate sources, and they have different weights in the environment. One of the important conditions for the lives of private organizations is obviously the role of political institutions, which may encourage the fragmentation or coordination of private interests and stimulate various kinds of changes among existing or new organizations. Chapter 4 focuses on the concept of biogeography. Species are located in particular geographical spaces where they form a complex unity with their environment. Much basic thinking on the biological-geographical connection is applicable to political species, which thrive in specific national, regional, or international contexts. Indeed, certain kinds of actors and environments are present in some locations, while they are missing in others. Although certain kinds of organizations are present in multiple countries and regions, they are not equally numerous, and if they exist in different geographical environments, they tend to display important variations. In fact, these factors are essential in examining the complex role of private organizations. Chapter 5 discusses the concept of niche, showing how it can be used to analyze the behavior of different private organizations. Biological species specialize and establish their own domains; they find particular spaces where they thrive and can access and exploit the available resources better than other actors, enhancing their chances of survival. When such actors seek to specialize and carve out niches, they may do this by representing particular interests, setting specific agendas, and occupying certain policy fields, providing them with different profiles. In many ways, it seems as if some of these actors are highly mobile, and, depending on their resources, they avoid barriers and move into new spaces in more flexible ways.

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Introduction—setting the scene

Chapter 6 studies the concept of competition. Competition is a basic condition in nature, and head-to-head competitions can occur, but there are also forms of indirect competition to exploit environmental opportunities, and we must account for multiple forms of competition. To define the concept, we can further distinguish between intraspecific competition, which occurs within the same kind of species, and interspecific competition, which relates to different kinds of species. These central ideas and definitions facilitate a nuanced analysis of competition in the case of private actors. Although these principles are very helpful, cooperation is also a key determinant in nature, and cooperation is equally applicable to private organizations in politics, offering various forms of beneficial interaction. Chapter 7 scrutinizes the concept of adaptation. Species must adapt to changing conditions in their environment, and adaptation is a complex process involving different forms of behavior that increase species fitness. Although political species change with their environments through co-evolution, it is important to pin down the factors that cause adaptation and examine the speed of adaptation. It is further necessary to examine different kinds of adaptation because most initiatives embrace multiple aspects, for instance, the internal structures of organizations, their various resources, and their external political behavior. Eventually, adaptation has important consequences for the survival of entire species, and over time, private organizations emerge or disappear. Chapter 8 focuses on various taxonomic problems. Biology has a rich tradition of classifying species, but the social and political science tradition of building strong taxonomies to categorize private organizations is wanting. Numerous concepts float around in the scholarly debate, and attempts are rarely made to develop joint approaches. Therefore, this chapter is facing the huge and demanding task of identifying and classifying private actors engaged in political life and determining their proximate or distant relationships. Although this is the last major chapter, the final goal of the book is not to establish a taxonomy, and the ordering of species should rather be seen as a chapter that informs the other themes and concepts, crossing over in multiple ways. Chapter 9 brings together all the key insights from the individual chapters. As a unified approach, evolutionary theory, developed in the field of biology, is a rich source of inspiration, but some problems of application exist in relation to the different concepts. These insights can overcome existing fragmentation in research, where a limited number of actors tend to be studied in isolation, but private organizations must be analyzed from an interactive perspective and examined over evolutionary time. The various concepts can be used to study private actors and how they emerge, how they are related, and how they evolve through adaptation. Together, these insights reveal an interesting potential that has only, to a limited degree, been utilized to study the evolution and diversity of private organizations in politics.

Introduction—setting the scene 19 Notes 1. Among the concepts used to describe survival, we also find “retention,” coined by the psychologist Donald T. Campbell (1965). It tends to be used by organizational theorists. In evolutionary biology, however, this concept is not in active use. 2. Scholars outside biology have also contributed to these debates. Interesting work has, for instance, been done by Mario Bunge. Advancing a philosophy-of-science perspective but with a background in physics, key aspects of Bunge’s approach were not particularly well received among biologists, however (e.g., Haffer 2007: 338–340; Bunge 2016: 279–300), and it does not represent the biological tradition in a strict sense. 3. Institutions based on public authority may in a certain sense be viewed as political species, but they are of a very different kind, aggregating concerns different than those of private entities. In terms of analogies with biological species, private organizations are a better analogy than public organizations. Whereas private entities are characterized by a large number of actors and tend to be formed in rather spontaneous ways, more parallel to the processes in nature, government bodies of various kinds are subject to a significant degree of central planning and hierarchy. If perceived as norms and conventions, however, institutions may, from a broader perspective, more easily be accommodated as species. Of course, institutions can be analyzed from an evolutionary perspective, whether we attribute species status to them or not (Tang 2013), but we face different translation problems. 4. Diversity may be broken down into genetic, species, and ecosystem diversity (Bowen 1999). These kinds of diversity are interrelated. There is some variation as to whether the concept of ecosystem or other ecological concepts should be used to describe diversity in the environment. However, this differentiation is in principle consistent with the meso approach taken in this study, where political species are analytically placed above and below other approaches.

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Evolution—analyzing gradual changes

Evolution is referred to in many colloquial contexts, but what is the precise scientific meaning of this multifaceted concept in biology, and how can we apply it? This is the theme of this chapter. As with the other concepts under scrutiny, this concept is debated in the encompassing scholarly literature, and, therefore, it is only possible to address a few key aspects, but they should be able to offer some important guidelines. Essentially, species have not emerged through a single act of creation in which all species have been conceived by a divine force but are subject to continuous change. Indeed, a long battle has been waged against creationism over the sudden arrival of species in nature. This basic departure point of scientific thinking in biology is also worth recalling when turning to the evolution of political species. They have not been created through one sweeping change or a decree installing a number of constant political species; rather, they have instead taken form in a long and continuous historical process, where the many successive steps can be hard to record. A frequent reference point, an “act of creation” in studies of political actors and political systems, seems to be the adoption of constitutions that define various rules and identify relevant actors in politics. Although constitutions may, of course, be more or less helpful in defining basic freedoms and rights that are also important for private actors, allowing their free and unhindered activity, they are not the evolutionary starting points. Private organizations, however, are not created in a coordinated move. In fact, different formats of private organizations predate the adoption or revision of constitutions, and organizations also materialize on an independent basis in ways often unobserved by constitutions. Indeed, many aspects of the lives of private organizations tend to be given very little attention, if they are not neglected altogether, while political institutions play a prominent role in constitutions. Biological experiences with evolution offer a range of conceptual tools for describing and examining evolution, and they are also relevant in the analysis of private actors. These concepts refer to different aspects of evolution: We first and foremost think of the emergence and change of species over the course of DOI: 10.4324/9781003212546-2

Evolution—analyzing gradual changes 21 time, so the time factor is always central, but evolution is also accomplished at different levels of analysis. Thus, evolution also refers to changes at higher and lower levels, such as the change in the individual body parts of species or the change in environmental conditions affecting species. These different ideas in evolutionary biology have, when properly translated, relevance for studying private organizations. In this chapter, we first turn toward the evolution concept and highlight its various dimensions. One of the major points is whether evolution is accomplished through the abrupt formation of species or through gradual change, as briefly discussed here in the opening. Another key issue is whether evolution is studied at levels below and above the species level and whether and how this may eventually affect changes at the species level—here also referred to as the meso level—which is our key concern. After a presentation of these concepts, we discuss how they can be translated and applied to private organizations, how the existing research in the social sciences has embraced the problems of evolution and picked up certain ideas, and how evolutionary biology can provide a number of fresh perspectives. The last part of the chapter offers examples to put the evolution concept into context, demonstrate its usefulness, and improve our understanding of private organizations. Biological perspectives With Charles Darwin’s pioneering, and at that time highly controversial, work The Origin of Species (Darwin 1859) and with Alfred R. Wallace’s parallel contributions (Wallace 1858), the idea that species had originally been introduced through some kind of design was rejected. They replaced this long-held belief with the theory, supported by empirical evidence, that species do not emerge through a single celestial act, an idea that in different versions was foundational in religion and also dominant in biology, but instead evolve over time by means of natural selection. Thus, the evolutionary process significantly influences the diversity of species. Gradually, and under specific circumstances, incipient and new species evolve and adapt to their environment, but evolution further leads to the extinction of some species. Accordingly, speciation is not only accomplished over a very long time horizon but also characterized by a continuous process of minute changes. Moreover, the ensuing debate over evolution and the concept of evolution have undergone important changes. One thing is for certain, however, and that is that the historical dispute between theology and biology has waned and no longer affects the scientific study of species, and important scientific work is accomplished within biology itself. Reformulated in our time, we find interesting discussions on the dynamics of evolution and whether sudden emergence or gradual change take precedence in evolution, and this problem is addressed in much more sophisticated ways yet echoes old debates. In this respect, there are

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Evolution—analyzing gradual changes

two key dimensions of evolution to be treated in this chapter, and it is appropriate to refer to a time dimension and a level dimension. In essence, it is possible to distinguish three different evolutionary concepts in the history of biology with regard to the general time dimension, namely “saltational,” “transformational,” and “variational” evolution (Mayr 1988). These different understandings of evolution also have profound implications for the study of private organizations as political species. First, the sudden arrival of new species suggests that species do not have real ancestries; therefore, species must be constant entities that cannot evolve into variants or into new full species. In this saltational view, as it has been labeled, species also become extinct without leaving traces of their existence on later generations of species. Second, the transformational perspective on evolution argues that species do evolve, but they evolve to become increasingly better species, where some are considered superior. According to this view, evolution has the ultimate goal of perfection, that is, it has an inherent kind of purpose, as if defined by design. Third, we may refer to a variational concept of evolution in which a gene pool, also ever changing because only surviving organisms and populations contribute, forms the general basis for variation and the emergence of new species. Species face different conditions, however, and species from this gene pool are subject to selection depending on their ability to adapt to a complex environment. Thus, the speciation process is accomplished in a gradual fashion. These lines, of course, present only a diminutive sketch of the concept of evolution, which in many ways is unjust given the huge research on evolution in biology, but the three different approaches offer us some basic hints about the character of evolution. While the first concept must be abandoned because it is largely static and design-based and, of course, contradicts empirical evidence, the second must be discarded because it sees nature and the formation of species as moving toward a particular end goal and guided by an ideal improvement of species. The third concept, roughly the one applied in biology today, has replaced the former concepts, but still many issues have been and are discussed in relation to this version. The important message in our context is that evolution must be seen as a gradual, but not even, process characterized by an accumulation of hardly perceptible changes that, over time, however, may build up observable differences. In these processes, some species will appear and some will disappear. The immense time scale is probably easier to recognize in biology, and, obviously, this places the evolution concept on much firmer ground. Species studied in zoology and botany and their abiotic environment, also explored in paleontology and geology, have evolved over very long time ranges; some have undergone considerable change and others few or almost none. The issue of speed in evolutionary time is therefore important (Simpson 1944), and variation across species must be remembered in the general discussion of time. An example of

Evolution—analyzing gradual changes 23 “slow speed” is offered in Figure 2.1 of the horseshoe crab, generally seen as a “living fossil,” which has not changed for hundreds of millions of years. In comparison, human activity, not to mention private organizations, has come extremely late. Therefore, it may be easier to understand the relevance of gradualism in nature than in the many issues that are examined in the social and political sciences, where historical perspectives are often ignored or sidelined in studies of contemporary phenomena. We will return to this shortly. Moreover, in biology, however, it can be difficult to define the precise meaning of gradualism. Thus, we also find debates on the emphasis on sudden or gradual steps in evolution, expressed in the idea of “punctuated equilibria” (Eldredge and Gould 1972). In this interpretation, gradual change is rather seen as accomplished through the combination of phases of marked changes and phases of no change, also called stasis, and the significant change period therefore tends to be particularly highlighted. One question is whether such punctuations in evolution are extremely rare occurrences or happen frequently. This will have consequences for the relevance of this conceptual tool because it will either be applicable to a few exceptional cases or be valid in a rich variety of cases. Relatedly, we can see change as a continuous process in which some periods are characterized by high rates of change while other periods experience low rates of change, recognizing that these patterns vary across species. Indeed, the idea of gradualism does not suggest that evolution moves at the same steady pace through history, and it is therefore possible to see punctuation as part of a general gradualist approach

Figure 2.1 The horseshoe crab—unusual stability over evolutionary time Source: Natural History Museum

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Evolution—analyzing gradual changes

(Mayr 1988: 457–488; Gould 2007) and avoid claims of the sudden emergence of species or the existence of constant species. This theme was already firmly addressed back in the 1940s and 1950s, and even earlier, but a new and lively debate sprang up in the 1970s and has been around us in the following decades. This renewed round of discussions raised important questions, but the idea of punctualism also received strong criticism, such as for its claim of novelty (Simpson 1984). Accordingly, some of the positions have later been reformulated to integrate them into the gradualist paradigm (Gould and Eldredge 1993; Gould 2002: 874–922), and some kind of general understanding seems to have been achieved. Apart from the specific biological disputes these issues contain, however, this problem is highly interesting in the study of private organizations, where both the emergence and activity of organizations can be studied from an evolutionary perspective. The evolution concept is complex and not exhausted by the time dimension; although this is extraordinarily complicated and includes both long and short terms, further aspects must be addressed under the concept of evolution. Although they do not focus on the time dimension per se, they are definitely related to it and also shape the specific forms of gradual change. Hence, another important theme in evolution theory has been the levels of evolution, also referred to as macro and micro evolution, because this theme addresses processes and entities above and below species.1 As to the macro dimension, it is helpful to understand a number of complex processes, but there have been some differences in defining this concept. It may refer to the condition that some evolutionary changes take place above the species level (Rensch 1959) and embrace a wider part of the lineage to which a single species belongs together with other and related species. Thus, the punctuation referred to earlier can be an example of such changes, as they may have consequences for many related species. However, great weight has also been placed on the aggregation of micro-level changes as an element of macro evolution (Dobzhansky 1937), and the relations between levels are subject to ongoing discussion (Dietrich 2010; Erwin 2010). Although links definitely exist, it can be argued that macro evolution has its own specific problems and agendas and is not a simple summation of changes at lower levels. Finally, the argument has been put forward that macro evolution addresses the influence of natural selection on relations among species (Hautmann 2020). In this interpretation, we get close to other concepts, namely those of interspecific competition and cooperation, which address relations among different species, both distantly and closely related, a problem we will address later in this book. Notwithstanding these different emphases on the macro components in biological thinking, some of which can no doubt be aligned, the study of the evolution of individual species must consider the development of a wider group of related species. The macro perspective encourages us to zoom in on such

Evolution—analyzing gradual changes 25 aspects of evolution, but a question is whether we should include the concept of co-evolution as an element of macro evolution because it addresses changes in the interaction between living organisms and their environment (Thompson 1994). This is a wider issue, and we will therefore return to this in the context of ecology and adaptation concepts. As to the micro dimension, this brings important insights into conditions below the species level (Simons 2002; Reznick and Ricklefs 2009). A number of processes within populations belonging to a given species are manifested at the genetic level, where populations change due to gene frequency and their specific habitat, leading some organisms to survive or to perish, thus offering different contributions to the gene pool. These changes will have consequences for species and ultimately also for changes above the species level because they will alter the position of a given species in relation to other species. However, it can be argued that the micro perspective embraces other elements that form part of a species. An interesting question is whether we should also include the concept of mosaic evolution in this micro context. What is mosaic evolution in biology? This concept addresses changes in selected body parts or functions of species and is thus concerned with a range of morphological and physiological problems as well as behavioral aspects (Mayr 2001: 240–249; Rieppel 2023). Species do not change as a whole or in one step, but partially. Specific features and behaviors are modified over long time intervals and must be observed in minute detail. Such issues have not least been dealt with in paleontology. The mosaic element therefore relates to parts of an organism, not the whole organism, and can be considered a micro phenomenon, but it also relates to several species where single parts of these undergo changes and thus can be seen as a macro phenomenon above the species level. These different conceptual problems are complex and difficult to solve here, but we can draw inspiration from them. Mosaic evolution is also a highly relevant dimension to address in our study of political species because this insight will draw our attention to the study of certain aspects of a species and possibly relate to several of these. In our case, we may investigate changes by analyzing a number of organizational properties, such as the sources of funding, the composition of members, and the make-up of secretariats, which do not necessarily generate new actors in a sweeping move. Such changes have a long-term effect and facilitate the emergence of political species and the withering away of certain existing species. This focus on certain traits is in accordance with the thinking in evolutionary biology. Such mosaic elements will build up and not radically alter the species in the short run but have consequences from a longer perspective, especially if certain key traits or the combination of changes augment these effects. As a result, new variations of existing species may develop, or even new full species may be formed, a basic feature of divergent evolution (Wilson 2001). In other words,

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the gradualist understanding of evolution is taking effect in a micro context and shows that the principle of gradualism is valid at different analytical levels. The biological concept of evolution has many facets, and we have highlighted some of the main principles, mindful of their potential relevance for studying political species. First, evolution focuses on changes over time and covers what we may refer to as a horizontal dimension. The evolution of species follows a general pattern in which there is a strong emphasis on gradual changes with no definitive goals, but this gradualness is not even across time. Some stages of change are characterized by greater intensity than others. Also, the speed of evolution is different for different species, and this aspect is very helpful to understand the variation in gradual change. What seem to be significant and abrupt changes may turn out to be less salient when applying a longer time horizon, and evolutionary biology is adept at analyzing such slow changes in the study of species. Second, evolution is concerned with changes at multiple levels and concentrates on what we can define as a vertical dimension. Evolution is accomplished at different levels, and evolution theory refers to the macro and micro levels and their various connections. While the micro dimension studies complex changes in the gene pool and also takes an interest in the various structural properties of species, macro evolution has a different focus. Macro evolution is strongly influenced by the many small and big changes at the micro level but is also concerned with relations among different orders of species, relating single species to wider groups of species, and, therefore, asking other pertinent questions. Reflections and translations The evolution concept has many facets, and we have already drawn attention to the horizontal dimension (time factor) and to the vertical dimension (level factor). The question is now whether these dimensions have been addressed in the social and political sciences and how we can use these broad experiences to study private organizations per se, bearing in mind the analogical thinking behind this exercise. We can discuss a few of these ideas here and will treat other aspects of evolution in subsequent chapters. As already stressed in the introduction, however, many treatises address changes primarily at the level of human individual behavior or changes at the level of societies or other macro structures, but to various degrees also linkages between these micro and macro levels. In both cases, drawing inspirations from evolutionary biology is an exception in the vast literature available in the social and political sciences, and most studies do not actively consult this. Overall, however, it is interesting to note that the idea of evolution has entered many areas of the social and political sciences and under many different names (Patzelt 2009). Nevertheless, the concept has only to a modest degree been applied to the evolution of private actors engaged in

Evolution—analyzing gradual changes 27 political life. Accordingly, we have to cast the net wider to reflect upon the use of the concept. As to the horizontal dimension, many intriguing problems of evolution have been considered in the social and political sciences, sometimes explicitly in models and stages of human development. In such treatises, we detect elements of goal-directedness but also forms of gradualist thinking. In the classic work of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, different stages (Marx and Engels 1848), most of them class societies, were identified in evolution (original primitive communism, slave-based society, feudalism, capitalism, and socialism-communism), and in the modernization tradition, Walt Rostow (1959) described five stages (traditional society, take off for growth, take off, maturity, mass consumption, and beyond mass consumption). Many other classifications of stages can be found, and there are strong traditions in such disciplines as archeology, economic history, and anthropology dealing with the prehistory and history of human societies. Broader and ambitious treatises are first and foremost concerned with social and economic conditions and see such changes as preconditions for political evolution, which is not treated with the same degree of detail, but there are also special studies of evolution in the political realm (Denemark, Friedman, Gills et al. 2000; Brooker 2005: 34–50; Grinin 2008; Currie and Mace 2011; Fukuyama 2014; Eisenstadt 2017). There is further variation as to whether evolution is seen as abrupt or gradual, but given that stages exist for many centuries or even millennia, shifts to the next stages obviously take time. This has been expressed in the theory of longue durée, where gradualism is seen as the principal mode of change (Braudel 1980). However, the time frame in economic, social, and political approaches is much shorter than in biology, which begins with the origin of life on Earth. This is a factor that can make the translation of evolution theory complicated. Moreover, swift changes are observed, however. This is the case in studies utilizing the “punctuated equilibrium” metaphor. In some branches of political science, the contribution by Gould and Eldredge (Eldredge and Gould 1972) led to a heightened interest in the time factor in evolution, but while punctuations in biology are rare, appearing only at long intervals and having become integrated into the gradualist paradigm (Gould 2007), they seem to be frequently recorded after the concept was first employed (Baumgartner and Jones 1993). In political science, applications are especially related to evolution in public policy (Eissler, Russell, and Jones 2016) and not to private organizations, where it has little to say. If we follow the discussion in evolutionary biology, however, there are reasons to believe that the concept is overused in studies of public policy, agenda setting, and institution building. Unfortunately, the interest in punctuation has neither drawn on the later discussions in evolutionary biology, including attempts to understand these changes as part of gradualist thinking, nor related the specific forms of sudden change to other concepts in evolutionary biology. The original interest in evolutionary

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biology as a source of inspiration has also waned, if not disappeared altogether (Green-Pedersen and Princen 2016), but this discussion reminds us of the complexity of the evolution concept and the different time factors. Various forms of change are also pivotal in the tradition of historical institutionalism. Although different types of transformation are recognized, there seems to be an emphasis on gradualness (Mahoney and Thelen 2010); ideas are not drawn explicitly from evolutionary biology, even if there is great affinity for this kind of thinking. The unit of analysis is defined as “institutions” that take the form of “social regimes” and set certain rules in the governing of societies. Interestingly, “organizations come to be regarded as institutions to the extent that their existence and operation become in a specific way publicly guaranteed and privileged, by becoming backed up by societal norms and enforcement capacities related to them” (Streeck and Thelen 2005: 12). Obviously, private organizations can take on these roles, either alone or together with public institutions, but more work is needed to identify how private actors not only contribute to change but also undergo changes as political species. This literature is not focused on private organizations as such and tends to sidestep those entities that do not enjoy strong recognition, but it offers interesting hints on time factors, the horizontal dimension in evolution. As to the vertical dimension, the relationship between different levels of evolution is an idea that has been discussed within evolutionary biology. It can be somewhat harder to translate than the time dimension, which is in many ways more straightforward. With regard to the vertical dimension, however, we can say that all political species are placed between conditions working above and below them, or perhaps rather within them. This perspective is in many ways parallel with the ideas of micro and macro levels found in evolutionary biology, although these can also be understood in different ways in this tradition. In principle, we may see the macro level as embracing broader societal and political institutions and processes that have an impact on private organizations. If we take a closer look at the macro level, it is clear that the evolution of cultures and civilizations and concrete political institutions set different framework conditions for the lives of private organizations. We are in stronger accordance with the biological perspective on the macro level if we give priority to the positions of a given species in relation to other and more encompassing ranks of species and return to environmental factors in the next chapter on ecology. In fact, we have learned from studies in biology that developments above the species level, and therefore concerning broader groups of species, must be examined as part of evolution. Usually, only single species, such as political parties or associations, are studied separately, but interesting attempts have been made to embrace their different roles and explore various connections (Lijphart and Crepaz 1991; Heaney 2010; Allern and Bale 2012). Eventually, such insights help us understand challenges that are common for a wider group of political species,

Evolution—analyzing gradual changes 29 but although some historical backgrounds are duly recognized, the relatedness of political species is a point that deserves stronger attention. While concrete contacts are useful to map in the treatments of broader groups of actors, we also need insights into the evolution of the key properties of the actors themselves. Existing research tends to focus on different individual species: Political parties are in many respects institutionally integrated into politics through parliaments and governments, but research has also examined other actors, such as associations. A basic issue is whether their participation in public policy is relatively free and unrestrained, as highlighted in different pluralist models (Dahl 1983; McFarland 2007; Lowery, Halpin, and Gray 2015), or whether there is a preference for particular associations that effectively coordinate interests, as emphasized in corporatist perspectives (Schmitter 1974; Wiarda 2016; Molina and Rhodes 2002). Variations among associations may further have an impact on their internal structures. In exchange for influence, some associations will do their utmost to comply with demands in their political environment, but they are also exposed to expectations from their members (Schmitter and Streeck 1999). Eventually, these dual pressures may strengthen the role of professional leadership, a classic problem dealt with in the study of organizational oligarchies (Michels 1911), and this may have an impact on the structural properties of associations (KohlerKoch, Fuchs, and Friedrich 2022; Ronit 2022). When moving into such issues, it soon becomes relevant to investigate a range of internal conditions, which are located at an analytical level below species. If we turn to the level below species, or, in other words, the micro level, we recall that the evolution of species in nature is closely related to the stability and change of gene pools. Obviously, we cannot rely on this essential concept, but the idea of a general reservoir that is vital in the constitution of species is helpful, and, in our case, the economic and social conditions shape specific groups and, hence, give rise to their variation. Accordingly, we may identify two basic and overlapping “pools” in the form of the market and civil society. This suggests that research on labor market organizations, such as unions and employer organizations, will trace their roots back to markets, and scholars interested in social movements will locate actors in relation to civil society. This idea of roots is here formulated in very generic terms but has the advantage that it can be applied across evolutionary time and across many different kinds of societies. In biology, it would be strange, actually unscientific, to ignore the genetic side of species evolution, and somewhat parallel to this, it would be strange to deny these economic and social roots and the consequences for the behavior of private organizations. This problem will be further addressed in the chapter on taxonomy. Being mindful of economic and social properties, we can study a range of features in private organizations.2 In biology, there is also a strong tradition of studying various structures of organisms, some of which are referred to as

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mosaic evolution and, as mentioned, can be linked to microevolution and macroevolution. Over evolutionary time, such partial changes modify or alter species. In the case of private organizations, it is interesting to learn about the general problem of membership status and possible transformations (Aldrich and Ruef 2006: 132–158) because this enables us to differentiate among different species. Specific structural elements also call for attention in political parties, where various changes have been observed (Machin 1989; Norris 2004; Lamprinakou 2008), but in many cases, there is little or no direct inspiration from evolution theory. Evolution theory embodies conceptual richness, and we have briefly discussed some examples of how the concept of evolution is addressed in biology and how it can guide studies on private organizations. Furthermore, we have paid attention to a few related sub-concepts. At first glance, the evolution concept seems uncomplicated and easily applicable, but it has rather different meanings, and these must be understood before we can translate the concept to the field of political species and private organizations. In a wider perspective, empirical discoveries and theoretical advances will facilitate a better translation of concepts, accounting for various potentials and pitfalls. The major ideas, however, are shown in Figure 2.2, where time and level are important in evolution and indicate different and often unpredictable paths for

Level of Evolution

Macro

Political Evolutionary Time Species

Micro Figure 2.2 Time and level in the evolution of political species

Evolution—analyzing gradual changes 31 different political species. Thus, the evolution of a single species may be more or less linked up with the evolution of other species (macro) or confined to partial changes within individual species (micro), and these linkages will manifest themselves over evolutionary time where different patterns exist. First, the concept of evolution focuses on the time factor in the emergence and change of species. Also in politics, we have historically and currently witnessed the evolution of a diversity of private organizations with roots in the market and civil society. They are not constant entities fostered in a single creative act but are characterized by continuous changes. Therefore, a gradualist perspective also makes sense in relation to political species, but the social and political sciences have only in some respects drawn on this thinking to understand the time dimension in the evolution of political species. There are excellent opportunities for translating the concept of evolution, but it is important to recognize the huge variations across species. Second, the concept of evolution is not exhausted with the time dimension, and to study evolution, we have to complement a focus on time with a focus on level. Drawing on inspiration from evolutionary biology, we may observe the macro and micro levels of evolution, suggesting that evolution is accomplished above and below individual political species. This urges us to study other phenomena and embrace both evolution among a larger group of political species and the many partial changes within individual species. Accordingly, we must identify a range of other private organizations and their evolution and define the specific forms of change that occur within individual species. Applications Equipped with some key concepts of evolution, followed up by translations and reflections on their applicability, we can now turn toward some examples of private organizations. The purpose is to discuss some cases that in one way or another can be better understood in light of these concepts, and we discuss both the time factor and the level factor in these cases. First, we show that it is possible for certain political species, such as guilds, that emerged many centuries ago to survive and adapt to new conditions over long time frames, changing some of their features along the way. Second, political species in the form of European associations do not arrive suddenly in the process of European integration, but many forms of cooperation and associability predate the official founding of such entities and evolve over comparatively short time frames. Third, the evolution of the consumer movement has been gradual, with variation in the founding of dedicated associations, but the organizations and their commitments also undergo change influenced by broader trends in and beyond the movement. Fourth, a number of civil society organizations have become increasingly professionalized and marketized, resembling other groups of species in politics, and important aspects of this evolution are traceable in their strategies and organizational structures.

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Gradual evolution over extended time frames: extinction and survival of traditions

Guilds manifest the collective organization of interests within various kinds of crafts and professions. They have been known since antiquity and have been active throughout large parts of human history (Lucassen, de Moor, and van Zanden 2009), coming of age a long time before the arrival of modern democracies. If they have not been universal, then they have at least been widespread. Strong activity is documented in Europe, but it has also prevailed on other continents. In an evolutionary perspective, this makes them an obvious but also intricate subject of research. Given the encompassing scale and scope of their activity, it is of course difficult to draw any firm conclusions regarding the role of guilds as such, but there are some important lessons to learn in light of evolution. Cooperation leading to formal guild organizations slowly emerged. In general, these organizations provided an important social platform, facilitated the exchange of experiences, and helped shape identities. Alongside other kinds of organizations, guilds regulated many activities in the market and created a number of rules to guide the behavior of members (Greif 2005). Strict measures were also adopted to enforce those rules and, in cases of non-compliance, expel members. As private organizations, guilds were endowed with the capacity to selfregulate, but they did not exist detached from public authorities at the local or national level. In many cases, guilds rested on some form of license that granted them an exclusive right to organize a specific craft or profession, but the influence of governments or city councils on guild autonomy could vary considerably across trade, geographic space, and historical time. For many centuries, guilds were important organizations in continental Europe (Epstein and Prak 2008). From around the eleventh century and well into the nineteenth century, they could be found in many countries and cities, gathering a local community or a national group of craftsmen or professionals. Presumably, the situation was somewhat different in the United Kingdom, where guilds did not survive for so long, and they were disbanded or weakened to the benefit of unregulated markets and the celebration of free-market ideas (Ogilvie 2011). This does not suggest that they became entirely extinct, as many guilds and practices continued, but their role in the economy and society declined. This divide has been important in the organization of interest, but continental Europe is not a homogeneous entity, and also here we find much diversity. While individual guilds were dissolved, it took a longer time for the guild traditions to wither away, and traces can also be found in other forms of organizations, which is a factor that gives us an indication of the gradualness of evolution. Today, the classical guilds can be hard to find, but some have actually survived, perhaps under different names or with different functions, and many norms, rules, and practices remain hidden, especially in organizations with roots in the market, such as business associations and professional societies.

Evolution—analyzing gradual changes 33 Indeed, it would be surprising if all the organizations and their legacies that have been a crucial element in economic, social, and political life for a considerable amount of time just died out, but many links and lineages have not been properly explored. The ways these various traditions have been passed on to successive organizations have largely been ignored, and economic history, which otherwise has taken a strong interest in the historical guilds, has not tried to trace these features in current organizations; and vice versa, scholars with a focus on today’s associations and interest groups have not uncovered possible ancestors, either. In terms of research, guilds tend to fall between two stools, leaving the false impression that private organizations are subject to saltational evolution. In terms of evolutionary theory, guild organization and guild thinking have left a strong imprint on private organizations over many centuries and even millennia, and we find strong continuities in contemporary organizations. It is interesting to note that guilds were present in many different contexts and emerged independently from each other. Borrowing from evolutionary biology, this could probably also be seen as a case of convergent evolution, where crafts and professions in different countries or on different continents have found similar ways of organizing markets in the context of political environments. Gradual evolution over short time frames: emergence of European associations

Many scholars have taken an interest in the work of European associations, and if a historical angle is included, their background is traceable to the early years of European integration (Haas 1958). Up through the 1950s, and especially in the last years of that decade, a number of new associations were formed to organize and represent European interests. Major steps were taken and somehow ushered in a new period of significant European associability, but this development continued over the next decades. The organizations were very much targeted at the new European institutions that were created as part of the Treaty of Rome in 1957 and in the building of the European Economic Community (EEC), preceded by the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) in 1951. Private organizations were numerous in socio-economic areas and especially in the business community, and this is no great surprise. Organizations whose businesses instantly became subject to regulation, but also organizations whose businesses were later embraced by public policy, were created in those years. Interestingly, some associations in the financial industry were established in the late 1950s and early 1960s before their members were affected by regulation, but they were founded to prepare for the future European integration of these policies (Mügge 2013). Man policy fields have continuously been added and enlarged the scope of European integration and, in various respects, changed the character of the institutions, but this is another story we can leave here. The

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interesting thing in our context is that new organizations emerged, and, in sum, these many bodies changed the overall landscape of European organizations. In other words, private organizations entered the scene in a gradualist fashion—and over a relatively short time frame. When we look further back in time, we see many indications of gradual change. Associations’ founding year can easily be established, and so it is possible to define their official beginning, but this only reveals part of a more complex picture. Indeed, important processes actually unfolded before the formal appearance of dedicated European associations, and these must be discovered to understand the evolution of this political species. Concrete associations and the principle of European associability date back to a time before the onset of European integration, as it took form in various treaties, although still within a comparatively short framework. The formation of associations was a result of collective action already developed in national contexts (Feld 1966). European cooperation did not start from scratch but brought together members from many countries through a range of smaller steps, which can also be identified empirically. The European associations were generally organized as federations, building upon an increasing number of national associations. In the early days, when the European Economic Community was very small, numbering only a few member states, it was easy to gather existing associations for further cooperation, not least because a variety of bilateral and multilateral exchanges existed below the European level. This bottom-up model has in many ways guaranteed that different interests and traditions have been slowly integrated into new and joint bodies. However, European federations have also played an active role in this process, helping national associations develop a European orientation, and so various top-down and bottom-up elements in association building have been combined. Many associations were from early on also established to coordinate in a broader international context without an ambition to interact with European institutions (Lyons 1963). Some international associations started out with members coming from Europe alone, or predominantly from Europe, and developed into international associations with a broader membership and commitment. Indeed, the formation of many international private organizations has to no small degree been informed by European experiences, some of which extended their scope and became global bodies and some of which spilled over into designated EUrelated organizations. This kind of gradualness is also attributable to the fact that many associations were from the beginning not political in the sense of seeking influence on European policymaking but were forums for the exchange of experiences and norm-building in the business community and various professional contexts. Thus, from the perspective of evolutionary change, the political character of associations was not necessarily a dominant feature right from the beginning of their existence, but over time they acquired new roles.

Evolution—analyzing gradual changes 35 Levels and time in evolution: the challenges of a rising consumer movement

The consumer movement has important historical roots. In many countries, consumer initiatives saw increasing coordination already before World War II, and the movement gained further momentum after the war and has grown ever since. It has formed part of a much larger movement in the organization of the economy, where other and alternative ways of organizing markets are offered by empowering consumers. Thus, this particular political species finds itself among a larger and related group of species in a macro-evolutionary context. Different related political species can be found, including the diverse cooperative movement and its many organizations. These organizations are to some extent characterized by the same challenges, such as representing a countervailing power to corporate interests (Galbraith 1952). In many cases, such bodies have often been backed by other groups in society, including the labor movement. However, consumer associations have established themselves as autonomous entities without necessarily being committed to a particular ideology. They have created their own platforms and rallied broader groups in society, but they can borrow a number of ideas from existing and related interest groups, such as the environmental movement, and bring them into the specific context of consumer policy. In addition to concerns for basic consumer goods, the movement has over time expanded its policies and come to embrace many new issues related to the arrival of new consumer items and greater affluence in society (Hilton 2009). In a very basic sense, associations must consider in relation to which products and services consumer interests should flag. Depending on the locations of the associations, however, different strategies are adopted simply because they find themselves in different economic, social, and political contexts. National associations representing consumers, or at least major factions of consumers, were not created at the same time, and given their diverse environments, the associations could not play the same roles across the world. The first national associations were created in Europe and North America, while associations in Asia, Africa, and Latin America were added later. This does not suggest, however, that we can refer to two distinct pathways because there is a significant variation in how these associations emerged, and in Europe alone, we find several models. They share a number of features but also have different roots in the market and in civil society and consequently engage with a number of other actors that seek to organize consumer concerns. Many organizations already in place have often played an important role in facilitating consumer action in other parts of the movement. Political and organizational experiences are transferred from the more affluent countries to Asia, Africa, and Latin America. In particular, the global association Consumers International (CI) acts as a catalyst in encouraging and strengthening the position of consumer associations on all continents, thus making the organization

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and representation of consumer concerns stronger on the global stage (Ronit 2018a). It has taken a very long time to professionalize the consumer movement in different national and international contexts. It is a process that has no end as both markets and regulations are changing fast and demand that consumers address new concerns, raise new demands, and define new rights. In this way, the traditional consumer movement has taken a number of new issues on board and thus come into contact with a broader group of private organizations, such as “tax justice NGOs” (Eccleston and Elbra 2018), but it has taken time to embrace such agendas. The activities of consumer associations are in many ways entangled with time. Many features point to the gradual character of species evolution and show the potential of ideas developed in evolutionary biology. In national contexts, the process from early activism to formal organization was not accomplished in a single move but took time, and in international contexts, we experience this gradualism when we examine how associations become involved in the professionalization of associations. Indeed, this is also characteristic of many social movements and not just of consumer associations. In all these processes, organizations must relate to a variety of other organizations that, in one way or another, are concerned with consumer issues, either very traditional ones or an increasing number of new concerns. Although consumer associations have a specific profile, they nevertheless share many challenges with some of the other private organizations. If we study the different associations more carefully, it is interesting to note the attention paid to ever-new policy fields, encouraging us to study separate changes in their organization and commitment, suggesting that a kind of partial, or mosaic, evolution can also be a promising concept in the analysis. Levels and partial changes in evolution: the increasing corporatization of civil society

Essentially, there are many actors in civil society, but not all of them are formal organizations with a place in politics. These organizations are also given many different names, an issue we will return to later in this book, but typically civil society organizations are seen as operating outside the market (“non-market organizations”) and not seeking profit (“non-profit organizations”). Thus, some of the general principles governing them include values such as solidarity and cooperation, and, in principle, they distance themselves from economic activity, leaving this to organizations with roots in markets. Those civil society organizations that actually engage in politics and seek to influence general rules and norms in society are active in a diversity of policy fields. They address issues such as human rights, environmental protection, and climate change and embrace problems that are of interest to both individuals and to society at large. A long list of organizations are associated with this work

Evolution—analyzing gradual changes 37 and include household names such as Amnesty International, Greenpeace, and Save the Children. In addition to the species level, levels above and below species are also affected by evolution, and within organizations, we can identify various partial changes. A general feature of civil society organizations relates to the role of voluntary action, where activists provide a variety of knowledge resources, launch campaigns, and manage the organizations. In principle, they are democratically governed, with strong participation and bottom-up structures that mitigate the risk of bureaucratic tendencies. A further hallmark of such organizations is that they do not seek economic gains, neither for their members nor for the organizations as such. These are, of course, general characteristics, and the different organizations do not always live up to these criteria, but they are still valuable to guide us and set these bodies apart from other kinds of organizations (Anheier 2014). However, an interesting phenomenon has been observed within and across these organizations, namely the introduction of ideas and practices from business, also labeled “corporatization” (Dauvergne and Le Baron 2014). This finding is interesting from the perspective of evolution because the observation is not made in very extreme cases but in relation to a wide group of civil society actors, and it therefore testifies to the broad array of structural changes. This group of private organizations has established highly professional secretariats, hired people with strong management skills, and thus built up advanced bureaucratic structures, seemingly to the detriment of traditional democratic cultures with greater emphasis on the roles of members and activists. Furthermore, they give increasing attention to funding issues. They do not rely on support from members alone and appeal to a broader array of funders that can help finance their activities, and they adjust to the demands of such funding organizations. Relatedly, the management of the organizations gives weight to economic effectiveness criteria, defines various goals, and establishes specific procedures to measure and evaluate them in order to strengthen their performance (AI 2023; Greenpeace 2023a; Save the Children 2023). As a consequence, giant organizations with roots in civil society seem to increasingly resemble corporations, at least with regard to some structural properties. These changes have not materialized suddenly but have evolved over several decades, which nonetheless is a rather short time frame. The organizations still cater to their basic values and ideas, and the profoundness of change can be discussed; hence, we should be careful not to draw hasty conclusions. We can safely conclude, however, that various gradual changes have been accomplished in the work of these organizations. Furthermore, the changes do not embrace all aspects of their activity. Only certain structures of the organizations are affected, and only certain principles and ideas are reformulated, but each of these changes, or the combined effects of the changes, may become significant. In these different cases, it is relevant to remind us of the concept of mosaic evolution, which enables us to study selected traits of evolution and account for

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the complex nature of evolution in organizations. Accordingly, different partial changes are identifiable at the same time that these political species remain the same. It is, however, difficult to predict whether changes over evolutionary time will lead to the emergence of new political species or whether existing species will acquire new traits without making this full conversion. Conclusion Evolution is a key concept in evolutionary biology, and this chapter has sketched different understandings of this multidimensional concept and how it seeks to capture processes in nature. There are strong arguments for emphasizing the gradual character of evolution, but the concept is by no means covered by the time dimension, although it is crucial for any study. Evolution is also accomplished at different levels, and the concepts of micro and macro evolution provide further tools for analysis. We must be careful when transferring this thinking from one branch of research to another. Compared with nature, the time horizon is short in politics, and the levels of evolution are difficult to define and differentiate. Nevertheless, these concepts can in many ways advance the study of private organizations as political species and examine change. Their particular usefulness must be seen against the backdrop of existing approaches to evolution in the social and political sciences. In general, these traditions have followed their own course and not consulted evolutionary biology for inspiration, but in cases where ideas from evolutionary biology are utilized, they are not applied to private organizations per se. In this chapter, we have applied the concept of evolution, and different cases have briefly been addressed. As far as the time factor is concerned, we have first witnessed that some categories of private organizations have existed for many centuries. Guilds, found in many crafts, industries, and professions, have gradually unfolded over extended time periods in history, have been a stable yet changing element in the governance of the economy and society, and indicate that species are not constant types. Their resources and principles have been carried over into various private organizations descended from other organizations, and when we seek to understand these organizations, we should not limit the analysis to what is formally labeled as guilds but be guided by a more flexible strategy. Second, the evolution of private organizations is also accomplished over comparatively short time frames, and this enables the study of many other details of gradualness. European-wide associations are today a common feature of European politics and are found in many policy fields. The build-up, or, for that matter, the profile of these organizations, is achieved through a range of accumulated changes rather than through radical initiatives. We can identify these many small

Evolution—analyzing gradual changes 39 steps, but there is a risk that they will remain hidden if we disregard the historical processes and only verify the formal foundations of new organizations, or if we highlight only certain events and decisions that catch our attention. Beyond the complex time factor, the examination of evolution compels us to study the level factor. Third, it is clear that changes in broader groups of political policies will also be present and characterize certain different aspects of individual species, such as consumer associations, not least because they are exposed to a number of the same economic, social, and political challenges. We have observed that other and related political species, both within and beyond the consumer movement, will send impulses into associations of consumers. Encompassing groups of private organizations belonging to the international movement increasingly coordinates interests, and this has an impact on the structure and behavior of their affiliates. Fourth, gradual evolution is visible within private organizations. Specific elements, such as their various resources, structures, and political activities, can be examined in greater detail, and we need particular strategies to identify and observe such internal changes. Changes at this level can be referred to as micro and mosaic evolution, and adaptations in organizations may have repercussions in other parts of their work. Ultimately, this kind of evolution can lead to significant changes and over evolutionary time turn them into other political species as part of a speciation process in which new political species or subspecies emerge. In other words, evolution connects the factors of time and level. Notes 1. This structure must not be confused with the one presented in Chapter 1. To define the focus of this investigation, three levels were outlined: 1. micro (humans), 2. meso (political species—private organizations), and 3. macro (societies). The three levels address the social and political world, while biology is concerned with the natural world, where other entities are studied. In biology, macro evolution stands for developments above the species level, typically with strong attention to higher taxa, and micro evolution embraces developments below the species level. 2. Similar traits are apparent in a number of political species, which may indicate that species are closely related. As shown in evolutionary biology, however, this is not always the case. “Convergent evolution” can be defined as “the independent acquisition of the same feature by unrelated evolutionary lineages, such as the acquisition of wings by birds and bats” (Mayr 1997: 138). As an example in politics, this could mean the often similar handling of social media by different private organizations. More work is needed to develop and apply the concept of convergent evolution.

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Ecology—accounting for wholes

Ecology is another indispensable concept in biology to be consulted and applied, and while the evolution concept is to a high degree concerned with time factors, ecology is strongly related to space factors but by no means unrelated to time. Accordingly, it embraces issues and principles pertaining to space in a broad sense, and more specific spatial dimensions will be discussed in the chapters on biogeography and niche. Thus, ecology denotes the totality of organisms and their environments, and, consequently, we need to examine the different conditions facing species in their interactions with complex and changing environments. This holistic perspective allows us to examine a range of conditions and relationships in nature, but also in politics, because species are exposed to a variety of relations and to economic, social, and political framework conditions. Likewise, they enter into many different kinds of beneficial or harmful relations that improve or degrade their performance and, ultimately, their chance of survival. When we shift the focus from nature to politics and, even more, zoom in on private organizations as political species, many basic ideas can be applied, but great care is needed. The ecological approach rests on strong and broad traditions, and, obviously, only some aspects will be discussed here. Very often, research in the social and political sciences on private actors is relatively narrow in scope, covering only a small selection of actors such as political parties and, at the same time, ignoring all other actors who, together, inhabit a given space. Such traditions offer limited opportunities for in-depth studies of a wider array of interactions and their significance, but the spatial concept of ecology reminds us of the broader contexts in which organizations appear. In fact, a rich diversity of exchanges with other actors as well as economic, social, and political environments may facilitate or hamper their work. In nature, many environmental conditions impact the lives of species, and when we concentrate on the diversity of private organizations in politics, we also observe a variety of economic, social, and political factors that influence their evolution. These numerous dynamics in their environment are not equally important, however, and we may distinguish among different distant and DOI: 10.4324/9781003212546-3

Ecology—accounting for wholes 41 proximate sources that have a variable influence on the lives of individual organisms, populations, and entire species. This chapter is divided into four parts. First, we present and discuss the concept of ecology as it is developed within biology but with the special ambition of extracting ideas and understandings that prove helpful for the analysis of private organizations. The concept of ecology is, in some respects, also considered in the social and political sciences, but only certain elements are applied and not always with reference to the biological tradition; hence, there are a number of unexploited opportunities for advancing this concept. Obviously, it is not possible to develop these on a large scale in this chapter. However, we discuss how the concept can be applied in a number of cases because we seek to grasp how a diversity of interactions directly or indirectly influences private organizations. Also, the various economic, social, and political conditions that can be embraced by the concept and form an important part of the complex environment must be factored in to examine these organizations. Developments in different markets in the economy, in social segments in civil society, and in various political institutions can have a strong impact on private organizations. Biological perspectives The study of ecology is one of the many branches in biology and evolutionary biology, but ecology also constitutes a separate field with its own problems and concepts. The origin of the concept can be traced back to the development of modern biology and to the increasing recognition of environmental factors in the evolution of animal and plant species (Haeckel 1866; Warming 1895). Colloquially, the concept, or rather the word, is used in a variety of contexts and is often associated with environmentalism, biodynamic production, or similar programs related to human interaction with nature. In biology, this would be confusing. The concept, reflecting important processes in nature, has a precise meaning, but there are multiple dimensions to account for, and we can try to clarify where it is distinguishable from related concepts. One of these interesting concepts is “ecosystem.” The concept of ecology is sometimes viewed as synonymous with the concept of ecosystem, and before we move on with a discussion of the ideas and dimensions behind the ecology concept, a brief clarification is needed to set them apart. Things can be confusing, and there are different scholarly practices, but there is a tradition in biology to use the ecosystem concept only in relation to specific demarcated spaces where organisms interact with their environment in an area, such as a lake or a river, which serve particular functions in nature and receive and produce various resources (Odum and Barrett 2021: 17–76). The concept of ecology, however, refers to overarching and less space-specific exchanges and can be applied in broader contexts.

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In other words, ecology and ecological principles pertain to all spatial contexts in nature. It is therefore also common to refer to macro ecology and micro ecology to capture different scales (Brown 1995), and some of the properties of ecosystems may be addressed in this way. In this discussion, we should also bear in mind that among biologists, there is some hesitance to use the concept of “system,” as this may suggest that ecology is based on strong regularities and laws as in physics, and physicalist approaches do not capture the variation and unpredictability we find in biology (Mayr 2004: 21–38). However, both concepts, found in different subdisciplines of biology, give some ideas about the interconnectedness of species and environments. Having left this brief discussion on the adjacent concept of ecosystem, the concept of ecology is, however, still complex. When extracting major ideas for the study of political species, we must remember that a hallmark of ecological thinking is that species cannot be studied in isolation from their environment. In the early days of biological discovery, species, or rather individual specimens, were collected, described, and exhibited unrelated to their environment. However, it became increasingly clear that a sound analysis required the inclusion of a range of other factors, including an ecological dimension, to classify them and understand their origin and behavior. This is also imperative in the study of private organizations. There are many ways to embrace the conditions of species, and this also applies to the study of political species. Accordingly, we have to make the biological perspective on ecology appropriate for our specific purpose, but this thinking contains a vast number of ideas, and we cannot treat this tradition in extenso. Many aspects must be ignored because they are irrelevant or too knotty, but we can extract certain elements that are valuable and more easily lend themselves to translation. Given these constraints, we may concentrate on biotic (living) and abiotic (non-living) factors, as they are referred to in ecological theory (Dunson and Travis 1991; Odum and Barrett 2021), because these conditions have crucial implications for the life of species, their selection, and their ultimate survival. Therefore, “selection itself is considered ecological when it arises as consequence of the interaction of individuals with their external environment during resource or mate acquisition or from the interaction of individuals with other organisms in their attempt to obtain resources” (Nosil 2012: 7). The changing conditions offered by both the biotic and abiotic environments therefore impose selective pressures on species, leading to the gradual evolution of new variants better suited to cope with the environment. They will take on new roles in an ecology, creating many new patterns of interactions. As we shall see in the next chapters on biogeography and niche, a number of further dimensions must be studied to fully account for the role of the abiotic and biotic sides of an ecology because an ecology will always unfold in concrete

Ecology—accounting for wholes 43 spatial contexts, and the specific make-up of species will also characterize these spaces. The relative impact of these two basic and multidimensional factors can of course vary, and it is possible to address them in turn, but together they constitute an integrated ecology. First, and following a biotic view, there is a rich diversity of species in nature, and we gain many insights from examining each of them and from studying their special morphological and physiological properties and patterns of behavior. From an ecological perspective, however, we observe how they interact with other species. Although a specific task lies in describing and understanding individual species, they are not alone in nature but enter into specific kinds of relationships, an issue that will be dealt with more thoroughly with regard to adaptation. Of course, this scientific endeavor to examine biotic patterns can be more or less ambitious and inclusive and, in principle, embrace all species in a given ecology. In this way, it is possible to investigate single-species populations consisting of organisms with similar features (Rockwood 2015), extend the scope and include multiple-species populations in the analysis (Block, Finch, and Brennan 1995; Weigelt, Schumacher, Walther et al. 2007; van Kleunen, Dawson, Bossdorf et al. 2014), and thus give greater weight to a variety of interactions.1 It is important to make this conceptual distinction in studies on population ecology, and we can also transfer this distinction to the study of political species. How do we identify these populations, then? Various genetic, morphological, physiological, and behavioral properties need attention and help us define species and single-species populations. “Shared characters,” as these different features are referred to in biology, are not sufficient to define a given species (Mayr 1982: 251–297, 1997: 177–190), and also the capability of interbreeding is a major defining feature of single-species population species. The criteria of interbreeding do not work in multiple-species populations, however, where fertile reproduction is not a possibility, but we can say that the lack of such capability is also helpful in identifying species and populations. One thing is to define, map, and scrutinize different single-species populations in the ecology, in which they are embedded, and also identify the density of these populations, that is, how many organisms we find within a certain space, but another and demanding exercise is to expand the scope and decide which other species to embrace in a dedicated multi-species analysis and how such a community should be defined. An analysis of this kind must depart from the premise that species have very different relations with each other, spanning from cooperative to hostile interactions, some of which will be dealt with in a later chapter on competition. To provide a strong analysis of such interactions, we must recognize the high complexity of this population ecology and understand how the lives of all species potentially influence each other. It would still be too simple, however, to record concrete and stable interactions because they change

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over time and become more or less intensive, and influences are both direct and indirect. These general principles are important to bear in mind, but often contributions from multiple species are relatively narrow, embracing only a limited group of organisms from different species, perhaps just pairwise interactions (Thompson 1994; Agrawal and Zhang 2021). Nevertheless, even such partial analyses of a specified ecology may bring an improved understanding of ecological problems, especially if experiences with different species in such a community are accumulated and together provide a stronger overview of the diversity of interactions. In fact, the ecological approach is a holistic method, and therefore we need to piece together different experiences. When we later turn toward the political species, we will face some limitations in covering all the different kinds of private organizations. Likewise, this field of research struggles with different strategies to analyze these organizations and their interactions, although these are not always informed by ecological thinking in the biological tradition. Second, and following an abiotic view, it is obvious that not only a diversity of organisms, populations, or species relate to each other but also that resources, such as light, water, temperature, humidity, and soil, are critical issues in the abiotic environment that make the life of certain species possible and impede the existence of other species (Odum and Barrett 2021). Each of these resources and the relations between resources and species lend themselves to scrutiny. Accordingly, ecological studies can be broken down into a number of separate analyses that offer profound insights into these diverse dimensions. However, species cannot rely on one of these resources alone; hence, their balanced provision is always required for survival. This suggests that the abiotic environment is very complex, and scholarly specializations examine many particular dimensions of an ecology, such as ecohydrology (Eagleson 2005), combining expert knowledge from different fields. Water is, of course, fundamental to all plants and animals, and in a very basic sense, Figure 3.1, showing water drops on a leaf, reminds us of the abiotic factors in an ecology. In parallel to this, the economic, social, and political conditions surrounding private organizations must be recognized. It is possible to establish general theories on the role of ecology (Dodds 2009), but many intricate choices must be made to map and explain the situation of concrete species and decide which abiotic problems to explore. While the concept and reality of ecology is multifaceted, key areas and resources call for investigation to gauge how individuals or multiple species depend on various environmental conditions. In principle, several and combined factors must be probed, but the relative weight of resources varies and will be different for aquatic and terrestrial animals demanding different kinds of resources (Denny 1990: 111–121).2 The place of organisms in relation to particular physical environments, such as mountains, forests, or steppes, also referred to as ecoregions,

Ecology—accounting for wholes 45

Figure 3.1 Water on a leaf—a fundamental abiotic factor in the life of species Source: “freenaturestock”

is an additional element that helps us distinguish among species and recognize variations in resource requirements (Bailey 1998). Obviously, species thrive in different contexts, but detailed analysis is required to examine how changes in various abiotic factors affect the evolution of species. In other words, the quantity and quality of resources have a tremendous but also differentiated impact on species. When changes in the environment occur and become highly unfavorable, some endangered species ultimately become extinct, as is currently discussed in relation to the loss of biodiversity. Different categories are established to define their conservation status (IUCN 2001), indicating that the possible disappearance of species is a gradual process. Threatened species are not necessarily doomed, and it is a process that in various ways can be halted and reversed. In other and less extreme cases, species will not disappear altogether, but ecological conditions may still have a negative effect and decimate populations. In all such cases, we will be able to determine the number of biological organisms within a confined area (density) and the speed with which it increases or declines (rate). This brief presentation and discussion of the concept of ecology has revealed its multidimensional character. It has a scientific basis in biology and its various

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subdisciplines and is applied to characterize the environment in which organisms exist and with which they interact. Therefore, a hallmark of ecological thinking is the co-evolution between species and their environments, but evolution does not affect species and environments to the same degree, in the same sense, and at the same time but is accomplished over long intervals, assuming an asymmetric character (Thompson 1994), and thus is fully consistent with the gradual approach discussed in the preceding chapter. Because of the highly complex character of the ecology concept and reality, different aspects are given priority among biologists, but we can sum up some major ideas on biotic and abiotic factors that are useful for our analysis of political species, and the discussion has also been organized with this purpose. First, regarding biotic issues, organisms and populations, within the same species or from different species, directly or indirectly relate to each other in the same environment. This gives rise to many different kinds of interactions in their search for resources. A key task is to characterize the size and composition of these diverse populations within a given space, determine the principles guiding their interactions, and examine how these influence their structure and behavior. The more species and interactions we include in such an analysis, the more complex the picture obviously becomes, but the study of nature is difficult, and often only fragments of a bigger whole are possible to capture. Second, regarding abiotic issues, the discipline of biology also faces many tasks. Species depend on different resources that they must obtain in order to survive, and many of these are available in specific spatial contexts. Accordingly, a range of abiotic factors must be identified and analyzed, but because they always work together and enable or prevent the existence of certain species, the study of these abiotic conditions in an ecology is of course more advanced if it includes such combinations, which, however, is analytically demanding. Piecing together many experiences is often a more realistic strategy, and this is also the way large parts of the study of ecology have evolved. Reflections and translations Many studies in the social and political sciences recognize the critical impact of environments on the lives of various actors. In fact, voluminous streams of literature and conceptual tools cover everything from general actor-system theories, studies of institutionalism, and explorations of relations among actors in networks. However, one thing is the common attention to spatial factors, and another thing is the active use of the concept of ecology and the explicit drawing on evolutionary biology. This inspiration is much rarer. When applying ecological thinking to the study of various private entities and not just to human behavior or societal forms of evolution, the current and more explicit use of ecological concepts, often through organization theory (Hannan and Freeman 1989; Scott and Davis 2006; Aldrich and Ruef 2006; Baum 2017),

Ecology—accounting for wholes 47 relates to earlier treatises but not necessarily in the biological tradition strictly speaking (Hawley 1950; Campbell 1965). This situation must be considered when evaluating the translation of ideas found in biology. As discussed earlier, we can distinguish among different dimensions of an ecology. Instead of biotic and abiotic environments, it is useful for our purpose to translate these factors and refer to different populations of actors (single species and multiple species) on the one hand and to address the general economic, social, and political environment on the other. Together, they enable us to account for wholes in examining private organizations as political species. As to the first point, an important element in the environment of political species is, of course, other political species. A basic question is which actors and relations to give centrality. Essentially, the major tradition in organization theory of applying the concept of ecology is related to the management discipline (Pfeffer 1991; Maclean, Harvey, and Clegg 2017), which is particularly sensitive to the behavior of firms but less suited to embrace other kinds of private organizations, although there is clearly potential here. It further has its origin in studies of US-based firms, which again makes it suited to examining developments in this realm but less appropriate for capturing phenomena in other contexts if serious adjustments are not made. Although organization theory has really been applied in a diversity of contexts, we should be mindful of such translation problems. In a basic sense, actors, such as firms, thrive under ecological conditions determined by market forces and display marked differences from those whose resources and survival do not depend on markets. Markets constitute a different set of conditions, and here other kinds of relations unfold among species, both of the same and of different kinds. Research departing from an ecological perspective includes other kinds of actors and embraces various private organizations in politics. Indeed, an interesting stream of literature is concerned with interest organizations (Gray and Lowery 1996b; Lowery, Halpin, and Gray 2015; Labanino, Dobbins, and Czarnecki 2021), and here the concept of population ecology is applied, but “organizational populations” or problems are also discussed in terms of “organizational demographies” (Carroll and Hannan 2000; Nownes 2015). Although the concept of population ecology has its original roots in evolutionary biology, major inspiration is not found directly in this discipline but rather in the tradition of population ecology as developed in organization theory. These studies have typically taken an interest in what we discussed as single-species populations, such as similar interest groups in a particular industry, which form a specific segment of private organizations. Valuable insights are offered into such populations, and we learn about important elements of organizational environments and move forward in applying ecological thinking more generally. However, it is interesting to note that in this literature stream, there is little or no clear and systematic distinction between single-species and multiple-species populations. To capture populations belonging to different political

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species, this distinction is essential because private organizations engaged display considerable diversity, with significant consequences for their interactions.3 In principle, this requires that we study not only interest organizations but also further categories of private organizations. It is possible to advance the ecological perspective even further by analyzing interactions among all private organizations and thus following ecological thinking in biology. The relative importance of these actors will of course vary substantially and embrace the different sets of private organizations addressed in this book. Indeed, the inclusion of multiple political species will ultimately provide a more realistic picture of the different ecological selection pressures to which different kinds of organizations are exposed. It is a tremendous task to identify and analyze the role of all real or would-be actors to grasp the space in which they are active. However, certain approaches seek to map a greater portion of political actors, such as policy network and coalition studies, which address the character and frequency of relations, although perhaps less concrete in specifying the features of species (Victor, Montgomery, and Lubell 2017; Kenis and Schneider 2021). These traditions harbor an ambition to study actors from an encompassing relational perspective but do not always focus on private organizations per se, and, moreover, they do not necessarily draw on direct inspirations from evolutionary biology or, for that matter, apply the concept of ecology. The environment of private organizations, whether applying perspectives on population ecology or not, is addressed in many areas of the social and political sciences. The inspirations behind these studies are quite diverse, but to the extent they draw on ecological thinking as originally developed in evolutionary biology, the population theme can in an abstract sense be related to the biotic part of an ecology. Accordingly, it would be misleading to equate the concept of population ecology, whether this refers to small homogeneous populations or large heterogeneous populations, with the concept of ecology as defined in biology, where it covers not only population aspects but also broader conditions in nature. Hence, a proper ecology concept in our context must also include economic, social, and political conditions in the environment, somehow analogous with abiotic factors in the biological study of ecology. We must therefore turn our attention to this part of the ecology, where private organizations are embedded. As to the second point, private organizations are exposed to a number of general economic, social, and political conditions that vary across time and space. Thus, some past private organizations are not active in contemporary political systems (Black 2003), and some private organizations found in affluent countries are not available or are configured differently in less prosperous parts of the world (Irwin 2021). In other words, we meet different economic, social, and political ecologies (Ronit and Schneider 1997). Sometimes certain political species are either present or absent, but different ecological conditions

Ecology—accounting for wholes 49 can also favor or disfavor specific organizations, making their existence easier or harder. Only concrete analyses can reveal which environmental factors are active, under which conditions they work, and, furthermore, how organizations respond to such challenges. We can also shed light on whether they can ignore at least some of them for some time and to some degree. Obviously, organizations are exposed to variable environments, which makes it hard to generalize findings with regard to private organizations as defined in this study, but all private organizations seek to attract resources from their environment. Of course, some of these resources are obtained in exchanges with other private organizations (Pfeffer and Salancik 1978), but other resources are acquired in the broader space they inhabit, which is also an essential part of the overall ecology. We cannot treat the full complexities of the economic, social, and political environment here, but political institutions in the form of governments are key actors everywhere and influence the conditions of private organizations, whether these have their origins in the market or in civil society (Siaroff 1999). As an example, governments are attributed quite different roles in the study of interest organizations. In the various pluralist traditions, governments tend to be seen as relatively neutral arbiters open to a variety of interests and, after all, less active in shaping the political framework for exchanges (McFarland 2007), while the corporatist literature instead emphasizes the distinct influence of the state on organized interests and their integration into public policymaking (Streeck and Kenworthy 2005). If we turn to other kinds of private organizations, such as foundations, we also experience the interesting impact of government on their activities. Legislation can be passed to enable the channeling of resources into foundations, which either set their own agendas in politics or donate resources to other private organizations. This legislation will vary considerably across countries (Anheier and Toepler 1999), and it is difficult to understand these organizations without factoring in political environments or developments in the economy that allow resources to be accumulated and directed to specific actors, such as foundations. If we seek to capture the role of political institutions in general as an important element in the environment of private organizations and how they ultimately influence their chances of survival, we need to examine three related kinds of selection pressures. In evolutionary biology, selection pressure refers to the conditions that species, including different variants of species, face and respond to in order to survive (Mayr 1997: 186–192; Gould 2002: 644–714; Okasha 2006), and in our context, it denotes the selection of private organizations in politics, where a variety of ecological factors are present in societies. No small part of the interest-group literature concerned with lobbying is focused on the various tactics and strategies to successfully leverage government. This offers interesting insights into various aspects of strategy-building but neglects important ecological parameters. We must, therefore, list some

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major selection pressures, which, however, demand further theoretical development. As a basic premise, those private organizations that share essential economic, social, and political values and goals with government institutions are preferred, while those that are irrelevant to or even critical of the raison d’être of these bodies and their major political programs tend to be selected against. Furthermore, it matters whether these favored organizations can, in fact, represent coordinated interests and can authoritatively speak for their relevant constituencies. This will make their concerns more legitimate and, in many ways, easier to interact with relevant government institutions. However, even among the most preferred and coordinated organizations, it is important that they provide relevant and timely knowledge in those areas where they demonstrate competence, and this facilitates realistic and legitimate governing. Therefore, private organizations that meet such criteria are generally favored. Against the backdrop of such a condition, individual organizations can devise various strategies and apply relevant tools, of course. In many ways, we can see these criteria as steps that represent different and related selection pressures, and this is in accordance with ecological thinking in biology, where selection involves different processes. Indeed, we reach a much better understanding of private organizations if we recognize the complexity of selection and the broader ecological conditions. These features and other elements of the concept of ecology, discussed and translated in this chapter, are illustrated in Figure 3.2. An ecology consists of multiple species and single species, under which we find specific populations and individual organizations that interact with each other in direct and indirect ways, but they are also embedded in an economic, social, and political space.

Multiple Political Species Species Population Organization Economic, Social, and Political Environment

Figure 3.2 Political species in an ecological perspective

Ecology—accounting for wholes 51 The translation of the concept of ecology gives rise to a number of reflections on how we can study specific cases in which the broader role of ecology is central to the analysis. There are definitely many aspects of the ecology concept and related concepts that deserve further attention, but we will highlight two dimensions. First, the pivotal role of ecology concerns the interaction within and among different species. In the social and political sciences, studies on population ecology tend to concentrate on populations of the same species, that is, a relatively narrow group of actors having the same properties and occupying the same space. The organizational landscape is diverse, however, and the ecology of private organizations consists of many and also qualitatively different actors, making scholarly attention to all entities demanding, but nature and politics are complex and should be examined accordingly. It is an important task to define and understand their role in the broad ecology and not only map actors and their relations. This attention to diversity, however, does not suggest that all actors and relations are equally important in an ecology because their roles and patterns of interactions will vary. Second, studies on evolutionary biology teach us about the profound impact of ecologies, and this ambitious concept advises us to take many economic, social, and political factors into account when studying private organizations as they operate in an environment that sets decisive framework conditions for their activities. The environment makes it not only easier or harder for existing species, but, ultimately, it also influences the speciation process through which the evolution of new species emerges. Thus, the environment is never neutral but creates variable opportunities for political species and exerts different selection pressures on private organizations. This very crucial part of ecological thinking is, however, often neglected, underdeveloped, or replaced with the postulate that private actors tend to have largely the same opportunities in democratic politics, or at least that economic and political conditions do not systematically favor particular interests. Applications The concept of ecology offers a wide range of opportunities for applications, but full use has not been made of the concept with regard to the lives of political species. We find traces of ecological thinking in studies of private organizations, but the concept of ecology and ideas from evolutionary biology are rarely utilized except for certain ideas from population ecology. In the following, we provide a few illustrations to advance the broader ecological perspective. First, we discuss a case on single-species populations in the form of political parties that share some properties and are distinguishable from other species, but they show interesting variations across countries where different political conditions exist. Second, a diversity of political species together constitutes a multiple-species population

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of private organizations. In this case, we discuss how private organizations, such as foundations and chambers, play different roles in a complex ecology. Third, political species interact with different environments, and we examine a group of associations with a background in the market, namely associations organizing general business interests. In this case, specific forms of coordination are selected by the environment. Fourth, private organizations rooted in civil society are embedded in environments where they meet other kinds of challenges. Some organizations with an origin in religion have their own unique evolutionary history and solve important tasks in changing environments. Single-species populations: political parties in the United States and Costa Rica

An important goal is to identify and analyze single-population species and thus gain profound insights into certain aspects of population ecology. In principle, this strategy can be applied to study all kinds of political species, and an analysis will provide knowledge about different entities sharing a number of key characters. Such a focus will of course not give us a better understanding of other kinds of species, but taken together, studies of single political species can, however, be rewarding in the analysis of multiple species. Attempts to define a single species run into problems right from the beginning. It requires that we define a political species and identify its various populations, but some species are more easily defined and demarcated than others, such as political parties (Sartori 1976). Parties, at least in countries with freedom of association, have in common that they run for elections to legislative assemblies and, depending on their role, sometimes take up government functions, and they further tend to have broad commitments and represent members and voters over a range of issue areas. As a group of private organizations, parties constitute without doubt one of the most easily recognizable political species. While the identification of political parties is relatively straightforward, the definition of other private actors can be very complicated, with fewer standards to rely on. With strong national variation across party systems, the task of studying single-species populations also varies considerably. The United States has a number of political parties, some of which operate at the federal level, but essentially only two political parties are represented in Congress, namely the Democratic Party and the Republican Party. Although there can be some independents without affiliation with the two parties, they are very few, and thus the two parties dominate politics (Bibby and Maisel 2003). We can further conclude that it is a rather stable pattern. There are no real indications that this single-species population is likely to be seriously challenged. This concentration on just two major parties, and the lack of other parties in the population ecology, is quite remarkable in a country with well over 300 million people. US politics, often described

Ecology—accounting for wholes 53 through the lens of pluralism, rather seems to have an oligopolistic or duopolistic character as far as the nation-wide political parties are concerned. The number of parties represented in legislative bodies is not, however, related to the number of inhabitants. If we turn to another polity, that of Costa Rica, we find other interesting patterns. Costa Rica is an independent republic with its own parliament and a population of little more than five million inhabitants. A number of political parties are represented in the legislative assembly, but as in other countries, we also find parties outside parliament. Currently, six parties are represented, and they are based on different interests and ideologies. Although there have been some shifts in the concrete parties represented over time, there have also been some stable patterns over many decades (Carballo 1992). This situation is very different from that in the United States and shows a comparatively stronger diversity in the party system. These variations in populations are related to conditions shaped by constitutions, election rules, and other legal requirements, key factors in the broader political environment of these private organizations that we always need to consider, but they also reflect the specific evolution of party systems and the interaction among political parties. In comparative politics, attention has been devoted to the numbers and roles of parties, enabling us to understand change and fragmentation in party systems (Wolinetz 2006). In our context, it is important to see political parties as one kind of political species and study them as constituting single-species populations. Compared to many other single-species populations of private organizations, political parties seem almost everywhere to form relatively small populations, and it is an important task to examine and clarify this phenomenon. Even among political parties, however, we observe the proliferation of different populations, and such variations in relatively small single-species populations require further scrutiny because they provide very important environments for the individual parties that must be understood in ways other than for large populations. In nature, many populations tend to contain a large number of organisms, but we also observe species represented by very small populations, and they can be rather stable and do not necessarily face imminent extinction. Multiple-species populations: foundations and chambers

Another major strategy to analyze the ecology of private organizations is to examine multi-species populations. This strategy may potentially embrace all species, at least within a defined space, and analyses will shed light on diverse properties and interactions. In this approach, the emphasis is shifted to a “between-species perspective,” but certain elements of a “within-species view” may also be useful to address in this context. However, we face an increasing number of delicate challenges in defining what actually counts as private organizations in politics,

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and controversy may evolve around which organizations to include and which to omit in multi-species analyses. Some of these challenges arise because population ecologies change over time and vary across countries. What seemed relevant to include centuries or perhaps just decades ago may be less appropriate today simply because some categories of organizations have evaporated and some new organizations have entered the scene of politics. They are based on various forms of coordinated action and pooling of resources but may take an individual form, such as foundations, or a collective form, such as chambers. Hence, it is advisable to adopt an open and flexible approach and include those private organizations that have a role in political life. This exercise must be informed by existing research and theory, but it is not one that can be guided entirely by this knowledge. As mentioned in the last chapter, there is a strong propensity to focus on actors that are traditionally attributed a role in constitutions, such as political parties, but we need to detect and observe a host of private organizations in such extended populations. This issue of inclusion in multi-species populations is, however, only a first step, and other tasks lie ahead of us, compelling us to analyze other aspects. Foundations can be seen as private organizations that become involved in some aspects of politics, and they play an important role in the United States, where a distinction is made between “public charity” and “private foundation” with regard to revenue issues (Hall 2006; Niegel and Pease 2013). They are found in other countries as well but seem to play very different roles, and what is not without interest they appear under different concepts and are not necessarily referred to as “foundations,” also making them subject to different kinds of regulation. In many ways, their existence and prominence in the United States are not surprising. There are of course many factors to account for, but compared to many other countries, government has traditionally played a weaker role in areas such as culture and social policy, and, therefore, there is room for certain charities to fill this void. With strong domestic markets and worldwide expansions, it has historically been possible for big corporations to accumulate significant resources and place some of them in foundations. Such opportunities have not been available everywhere. Chambers are also private organizations with a role in different areas of politics, and they are present in many countries around the world (Sack 2021). Yet, their place varies considerably in multiple-species populations. They are subject to various kinds of regulation, but a distinction can be made with regard to whether they fall under private law or public law. In some countries, they work in an independent fashion under private law, while in other places, they are regulated by political institutions. In Austria, where chamber membership is compulsory (WKO 2023), chambers occupy a key role in the organization of business interests, and this has given them an authoritative voice in individual sectors and

Ecology—accounting for wholes 55 in the broader coordination of business. The Austrian chamber system is highly institutionalized, builds on strong historical traditions, and emerged as a kind of concession to industries and professions in a time otherwise characterized by absolutist rule. Other forms of business associations coexist with the chambers, but they remain important pillars. The inclusion or exclusion of specific species in the analyses of private organizations must always be considered when studying such multi-species populations. Not only will it influence whether we can enumerate these categories and establish a complete image of private organizations as political species, but it will also determine which interactions to explore. A lesson from evolutionary biology teaches us that the full roles of species can only be determined when multi-species populations are given attention, and this lesson is also valuable with regard to political species. Organizations in markets: business associations

As political species, private organizations emerge in particular environments and are intrinsically connected with them. When markets play a central role and there is a strong focus on growth in society, this economic institution will of course have a huge impact on the conditions of private organizations involved in politics. In turn, some private organizations are also in a better position to accumulate the necessary resources to master this environment. Following insights from the biological study of ecology, it would be absurd to ignore the intimate relations between species and the environment. Accordingly, market economies provide special opportunities for those entities that build on and advance these values and make it comparatively difficult for others, somewhat akin to the circumstance that factors such as precipitation and elevation, just to mention a few, make life possible or easier for some categories of species in nature and exclude other species or at least make life more challenging for them. Once we have recognized the fundamental role of environmental factors in the lives of private organizations, we are able to ask specific questions and arrive at a differentiated understanding of market influence on these organizations because markets and market values can be many things and vary across time and space. Factors such as the economic situation, the concentration of firms, and the introduction of new technology may all have implications for the organization and coordination of the business community. The rise and decline of industries and the related employment figures are also material conditions that should be counted in because they tend to favor some organizations and impede the work of others. We further need a detailed understanding of the political environment. Different agendas and regulations surround the market, reflecting different ideologies. Obviously, they also change over time and vary across countries, but they all affect the ways in which markets are institutionalized. Eventually, such political

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factors in the environment of private organizations have consequences for the actors who come to organize the business community and how they interact. In other words, the patterns of business regulation form an important element in the ecology of private organizations rooted in business. In many countries, we see a capacity in business to coordinate interests in an encompassing manner, a tradition that is stronger in some parts of Western Europe than in North America, but also experiences from other parts of the world, such as Japan and Australia, testify to this capacity (Coleman and Grant 1988; ICC 2023; IOE 2023). Although there are many associations specialized in each industry, businesses nevertheless manage to organize interests across all sectors and represent them before the government. It is no easy task to speak with one voice because different concerns must be represented, and there are many cleavages in the business community. The special role of such peak associations is also encouraged by governments, which in some cases prefer to interact with such organizations rather than with single firms or specific industries and welcome these into special consultations, perhaps together with labor in tripartite arrangements (Brandl and Lehr 2019). This, however, requires that there are corresponding trade unions, and this is also a factor that helps in shaping the organization of business. The propensity toward coordination is encouraged in different countries but is also a phenomenon at international levels. A number of global business associations seek to represent business in different institutional contexts, and, in general, these associations only admit one member per country. Business at OECD, an organization representing business in the OECD countries and interacting with the OECD, only builds on national associations that organize the entire business community (BIAC 2023). Accordingly, national associations must organize their interests cohesively if they want to join this forum and influence the formulation of global business interests. Strong selection pressures in these ecologies will therefore influence the organization of business and favor organizations that effectively manage coordination. The issue of participation in this business association and the related OECD activities is just one of many concerns in national associations, but it shows that environmental pressures are found in many contexts and at many territorial levels. Accordingly, both economic and political environments must be factored in to understand the role of private organizations rooted in the market, and there are many and complex conditions that impact the activities of business peak associations. Organizations in civil society: religious confraternities

Centuries ago, the organization of civic life was intrinsically linked with religion in Christian societies—an experience also witnessed today in countries in which religion is a dominant force. Accordingly, it was hard to determine the difference between civil society and religious community, but we can at least make a

Ecology—accounting for wholes 57 distinction between those entities that belonged to the Church in a narrow sense, such as religious confraternities engaged in caritative work, and other bodies that were influenced by Christian ideas and values, such as guilds (Hunt and Murray 1999), and that served major secular functions in society but often under the patronage of a saint. Interestingly, many different organizations were born into and entrenched in a cultural and political environment with a core religious basis. In the Middle Ages, Christianity was practically identical with Catholicism in most parts of Europe. With the advent of Protestantism in its different variants, however, civil society achieved greater independence from the Church, which gradually lost control, and various autonomous private organizations emerged. Over evolutionary time, it therefore became increasingly relevant to distinguish between religious and secular parts of civil society, and private organizations became integrated into somewhat different ecologies. With greater secularization in Christian societies, many further changes have occurred (Wittberg 1994), but a number of interesting lessons can be drawn. An important point is that private organizations are everywhere critically dependent on their environment, which facilitates the emergence of certain organizations and inhibits other organizations. Having some parallels with nature, certain categories of organizations can only be found within some ecologies, and religion has paved the way for a range of civil society organizations (Brasher 2017). In countries where Catholicism remained the official and principal religion, it provided the defining context for private organizations and enabled both the survival of bodies already established and the creation of brand-new entities allegiant to Catholicism. Obviously, this was the case in southern Europe and in the various colonies held by these countries, especially in Latin America. Religious organizations could serve different functions in society. Some of them focused on social and health issues, catering to the needy and ill, and undertaking tasks not taken properly care of by other parts of civil society or state institutions. There are many examples of such organizations in these sectors, and a prominent case is the Confraternity of Santa Maria della Misericordia, established in Italy (Florence) in 1244 (Misericordia 2022). At that time, confraternities became a very common way of organizing parts of civil society, and Misericordia also worked as a voluntary organization in the form of a confraternity recognized by public authorities. Over the centuries, it has undergone various changes, and today the organization is established in different parts of Italy but has activities in many other countries and has thus extended its services to places where Roman Catholic culture is strong or Italian communities can be found today but is completely missing in other parts of the world. It is remarkable that the Misericordia organization has survived and learned to live in very different historical environments, which says something both about its strong roots and its abilities to find a place in modern societies, at least in the relevant countries and communities.

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Today, many social and health organizations that fulfill some of the same functions as the Misericordia either have their origins in the market and offer various health services on a commercial basis or have their background in public institutions at local or national levels. Indeed, with the expansion of modern welfare states, the demand for civil society organizations has diminished in the health sector. In an ecological perspective, this suggests that certain economic, social, and political conditions for these kinds of civil society organizations were available in the past because efficient markets and strong states were missing, but these conditions have changed significantly. The situation today is starkly different from the historical time in which the Misericordia was fostered and in which civil society was characterized by a strong religious community and an omnipresent church. With strong variation across countries and cultures, civil society organizations, including those with a religious background in Christianity, may, however, still play a role in health provision. However, their work is carried out in different contemporary ecologies, to which they have adapted. Conclusion Ecology is a key concept in relation to evolutionary biology, but it is often used differently in public discourse and in scientific inquiry. There can be slightly different interpretations of the concept among biologists, but there is general agreement around its broad usage. Thus, an ecology consists of biotic and abiotic dimensions, involving the living and non-living, and this distinction can be translated and serve as an analogy in our context. As political species, private organizations on the one hand interact with other private organizations belonging to the same or different political species, and, on the other hand, they sustain life in economic, social, and political environments. In studies of the population ecologies of private actors, there is a tendency to map the density of selected actors and to varying degrees decouple these from economic, social, and political environments. The ecological approach in biology, however, reminds us that we can only grasp the properties and activities of species in the context of their broader space, which is an important factor in selection. Environmental conditions have a strong bearing on all private organizations, and, vice versa, they shape their environments. Thus, there is no evolution without ecology, and no ecology without evolution, and this chapter has added important building blocks to the chapter on evolution. First, an important dimension of ecology consists of organisms belonging to the same species, in our case, other political species, and a chief task is to map and put actors into suitable species categories. Following the biological perspective, it is also useful to analyze interactions among private organizations in single-species populations. Political parties, although diverse, can be analyzed as single-species populations, a subset of all private organizations, and they generally form small populations. However, there are huge differences in the size

Ecology—accounting for wholes 59 of these populations, and the United States and Costa Rica demonstrate that populations are not necessarily proportional to the size and complexity of other economic, social, and political parameters. Second, it is necessary to offer an extended perspective on species and embrace different kinds of species. To the extent that concepts of ecology are actually invoked in the social and political sciences, reference is mainly to “population ecology,” and no proper distinction is made between single-species and multiple-species populations. However, these concepts in evolutionary biology help us recognize a diversity of species and relations. For example, we have drawn attention to organizations building on the pooling of resources, such as foundations, and organizations based on collective action, such as chambers. Depending on locations, certain categories of private organizations are present in some places but insignificant or absent in other spatial contexts. Third, in ecologies characterized by markets and market values, certain categories of private organizations have a number of comparative advantages. Environments in the form of economic and political institutions will be inclined to select those interests and actors that, grosso modo, correspond with their norms and rules. It is therefore essential to acknowledge the different backgrounds of organizations and their variable opportunities in historical and contemporary environments. As shown, there is a special demand for business associations coordinating interests across the business community, and such associations are common in more or less all countries based on some kind of market economy, but their concrete status varies. Fourth, particular civil-society interests and values are favored in a given ecological context, and some groups of private organizations may have special opportunities. These conditions change over time, and species and environments are characterized by complex processes of co-evolution. In a historical perspective, religious organizations have been facilitated in the Catholic world, and, in the case of Misericordia, its emergence and survival are only understandable against the backdrop of a religious and cultural environment. An important job remains to specify different ecological conditions, and inspiration from evolutionary biology, not a wholesale adoption of factors, is useful. However, there is still a long way to go to account for wholes involving species and environment. Notes 1. The literature is not everywhere consistent, and historically there have been different traditions (Odum 1959; Wells and Richmond 1995; Mayr 1997: 207–226). It is common to refer to “community ecology” to embrace a wider set of species, but “community” is not consistently used for this purpose and may also cover populations of organisms belonging to the same species, and thus the concept relates to “singlespecies populations.” Instead of reproducing this imprecision, we may clarify by referring to the biotic dimension as covering single-species populations and

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multiple-species populations, also mentioned in scholarly work, with the latter describing “community ecology.” 2. For the role of plants in an ecology, other major categories can be distinguished, and things become further complicated because plants transform abiotic values (Crawley 2009). 3. In applications to interest organizations, the concept of population seems to be used somewhat interchangeably with the concept of community, also found in organization theory (Aldrich and Ruef 2006: 240–245), where several populations constitute a community. Great precision is needed because a community in biological understanding not only embraces different populations of the same species but also populations from different species, as emphasized in this chapter. As will be discussed in the chapter on competition, these distinctions have major consequences for the study of principles guiding interactions among political species.

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Biogeography—studying large spaces

Species are found in particular geographical spaces where they are generally well adapted to the native conditions, and, together with the environment, they form a complex unity as stated in the concept of biogeography. There are cases of cosmopolitan species that are widely distributed, but usually species are observed only in some places, small or large, and they are rare or even totally absent in other areas. A number of important factors determine their distribution and make it possible to link species to particular parts of the world and, again, to specific locations. Unlike most of the other key concepts discussed in this book, biogeography is not a word or a concept that we meet outside of biology. Therefore, it is not necessary to consider whether connotations from vernacular language have offered another understanding of this concept than that offered by the biological discipline and questioned how it can be translated to the political realm. The concept, however, covers many dimensions of species and environment, and we need to consult a number of related concepts to fully appreciate its meaning. Many basic ideas of the biological-geographical connection can also be applied to political species, which tend to thrive in specific national, regional, or global contexts that have their own traditions and are guided by entrenched rules and norms. This concept, or rather the ideas behind it, is therefore also important in the study of private organizations as political species; care, however, is needed when analyzing the roles of such actors in different countries, at different territorial levels (local, national, regional, and global), and in different policy fields. We can definitely say that geography has a substantial role to play in the distribution of political actors and in the constitution of economic, social, and political environments. Indeed, we find certain kinds of private organizations and interactions in some countries, whereas they are completely missing in other countries. There are a number of conditions that make actors thrive in specific contexts and keep others outside. Although certain populations of private organizations are present in multiple countries and regions, they are not equally numerous, and if

DOI: 10.4324/9781003212546-4

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they exist in these different geographical contexts, they are not always similar but instead display important variations. Indeed, these patterns show how species have adapted to different environments over evolutionary time. In this chapter, we first discuss the concept of biogeography as it is developed in evolutionary biology, where it has a strong tradition. It gives us a fundamental understanding of the geographic scope of species distribution, and it offers insight into which factors inhibit or allow the spread of species. There is a diversity of additional concepts related to biogeography, and a few of these are considered, including “barriers,” “invasive species,” and “endemic species.” Although the concept of biogeography has never been taken up in the social and political sciences, various connections between geographic space and political species have been addressed, and we discuss some of these contributions. It is, therefore, important to show how specific ideas in evolutionary biology can advance the study of private organizations, and with the help of the concept of biogeography, we argue that certain neglected issues can be better understood. In the third part of the chapter, featuring some empirical examples, we display the usefulness of the concept by applying it to different cases to highlight the unity of space and actors. In the conclusion, we sum up the major ideas and directions in which the concept of biography seems to have potential in analyses of private organizations in politics. Biological perspectives The concept of biogeography is deep-rooted and established, but it has been modified over time, embracing conceptual developments and empirical discoveries (Darwin 1839; Wallace 1860; Mayr 1942; MacArthur and Wilson 1967), and new findings are continuously added. Its origin and meaning can be traced back to a time when naturalists and scientists gained increasing knowledge about the diversity of species across the world. In a very basic sense, they learned that species with which they were already familiar were not found in many other countries, not to speak about other continents, where entirely new species were discovered and added to the already known flora and fauna (von Humboldt 1814). Although certain elementary lessons could be drawn early in human existence, this pool of knowledge expanded and enabled the formulation of syntheses in the nineteenth century, thus solidifying the concept of biogeography. Darwin’s co-discoverer of the principles of evolution, Alfred Wallace, an explorer traveling to Europe, South America, and Asia, stated that “the various species of animals are not uniformly dispersed over the surface of the country. If we have a tolerable acquaintance with any district, be it a parish, a county, or a larger extent of territory, we soon become aware that each well-marked portion if it has some peculiarities in its animal productions” and “if we travel beyond our

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district in various directions we shall almost certainly meet something new to us: some species which we were accustomed to see almost daily will disappear, others which we have never seen before will make their appearance” (Wallace 1876: 3). Importantly, these variations were attributed to such factors as climate and vegetation, complex phenomena that also have to be specified, but also to geological changes taking place over evolutionary time, causing the appearance and disappearance of continents. Biogeographic zones or regions can vary in size and embrace very large spaces with more or less similar flora and fauna and, thus, cover significant parts of the world, such as a continent or multiple continents. It is possible to further divide these into smaller entities with strong commonalities, as in the example shown in Figure 4.1. These zones and regions create various spatial frameworks, and these are furthermore filled with a range of interactions between selected species and their respective environments. In a wider perspective, the biogeographic

Figure 4.1 Biogeographic regions on a single continent Source: European Environment Agency (EEA)

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tradition recognizes and searches for very detailed kinds of space, a lesson we can carry over into the study of private organizations as political species. The distribution of species is not just attributable to current conditions in nature but also to historical circumstances and forms part of evolutionary theory. Hence, the groundwork can be laid for distinguishing different areas of species distribution. Such spaces, and the boundaries between them, are crucial for the life of species, and, accordingly, accumulated data have allowed scholars to define specific zones. These insights must be combined with the different concepts of ecology discussed in the preceding chapter, which also aim at identifying spatial entities. The concept of biogeography, therefore, offers an additional tool to address space and take up issues that other concepts do not fully address. These basic ideas seem helpful to analyze the embeddedness of private organizations and to examine how they survive in specific political environments. Indeed, there seems a significant stability in the composition of private organizations in different countries and in ways that make both the organizations and the economic, social, and political conditions distinguishable from each other. However, this close connection between a given space and a set of actors must not prevent us from observing change. The overall dispersal ability of species is closely related to the affinities between their old place and their new place (Mayr and Diamond 2001: 66–104), but widespread dispersal is possible under specific conditions. This is relevant for a limited number of species in nature, however. Adaptation to new environments is difficult, and as a general rule, only species accustomed to similar or almost similar environments will successfully be able to migrate, cross barriers, and settle in areas beyond their traditional habitats, a demanding process. The further apart they come from their original biogeography, the less likely it is that species will become part of the new environments. Successfully migrating organisms will typically represent a smaller fraction of the whole population from which they departed, and consequently, they do not cover the entire gene pool of the species concerned (Mayr 1942; Nosil 2008). Accordingly, not all traits are transferred to later generations. Furthermore, these organisms will be confronted with slightly different environments in the new place, and they will have to react in somewhat different ways (Donohue 2011). Hence, over evolutionary time, species will undergo various smaller changes that may eventually lead to the emergence of new subspecies closely related to but different from the population in their areas of origin. Mindful of the time perspective, some of these changes will be significant and accumulate, leading to the emergence of new full species. Careful phylogenetic work is needed to establish the links between past and current species but of course also among various current species when establishing a species taxonomy. These changes have been studied in great detail in biology and have shown that biogeography and species evolution are intrinsically linked.

Biogeography—studying large spaces 65 There is every reason to emphasize the close ties between existing species and their current environment in different biogeographic zones, but it is also important to discuss the challenges of newly arriving species, addressed under the concept of invasive species. This is a classical problem in biogeographic studies (Elton 1958), and it has received increasing attention in different branches of biology. Other concepts have also been applied, such as neo-biota (Kowarik 2002), and there is a discussion on which concepts are most appropriate and best capture these complex cases (Humair, Edwards, Siegrist et al. 2014; Kapitza, Zimmermann, Martín-López et al. 2019). It is a question, however, whether concepts that underscore the newness of species adequately capture the essence of the invasive species problem. In an evolutionary perspective, there can also be a gradual renewal of existing species, slow in some cases and rapid in others, and this evolution is also accomplished within a given geographic space and not just provided by the arrival of external organisms. Accordingly, it would be inappropriate to ascribe the same kind of novelty to both kinds of species. It is further important to remember that such organisms from outside a given biogeography are endowed with discrete qualities, and invasions have huge consequences for already-present species and their environment. In fact, alien species will tend to eliminate some of the native species, including perhaps also endemic ones, and become harmful to the environment and disrupt existing balances in nature. If successful, such species will alter the existing balances of the biogeography and reduce biodiversity. If they persist in their new environment, they will eventually become naturalized, but this will require an extended period of time and in some respects make them different from what they once were. Invasions can be studied in detail. It is not a swift process accomplished in a single step where new and invasive species simply wipe out native species and exploit resources to the detriment of the environment, whether this can be defined as a specific habitat, an ecosystem, or something else. It is rather a slow process, enabling us to examine its different stages. Invasions may be successful up to a point but can be halted and ultimately fail, and thus it can take a long time before such new species have entered and settled permanently in a specific territory. Although invasions display much variation, there are some standard stages that can guide investigation (Colautti and MacIsaac 2004), and this enables us to define successful or unsuccessful invasions and to examine elements of the process. When we examine the arrival of new species, whether they ultimately have an invasive character or not, we need to highlight the various obstacles they face, expressed through the concept of barriers. In nature, there are multiple standard barriers, such as latitude, where climate factors count, and elevation, where vegetation factors are important, just to mention some general conditions (Cox, Moore, and Ladle 2016). Obviously, these, and other barriers, must be further identified and operationalized because each barrier is not equally relevant for

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all species, and different barriers can work in combination and may also change over evolutionary time. However, the general issue of barriers is central to the study of biogeography, but this thinking is also possible to translate and develop with regard to the study of private organizations. As a key aspect of barriers, the problem of relative isolation also demands scrutiny. In evolutionary biology, the study of islands and their isolation constitutes a specific body of literature in biogeography and builds on a strong tradition of scientific inquiry (Wallace 1880; MacArthur and Wilson 1967; Mayr and Diamond 2001; Vuilleumier 2005). Oceans constitute a major barrier, and thus migration to islands, especially those categorized as oceanic islands, tends to be difficult, whereas dispersal to islands lying closer to continents, referred to as continental or mainland islands, is comparatively easier. Hence, many and especially small oceanic islands are usually characterized by limited species diversity, particularly if they have never been part of a continent and were “born” with an amount of mainland species. Instead, they tend to have many endemic species (Kier, Kreft, Lee et al. 2009). Many factors propel or inhibit dispersal and must be considered and evaluated in individual cases, but the concept of barriers raises a number of principal problems about the stability of biogeographic zones. Indeed, barriers are generally very effective and secure so that existing ecologies are not significantly disturbed or eroded, but they are not always strong enough and to various degrees circumvented. The task is therefore to identify various kinds of barriers and, from a further perspective, establish a concept of barriers that is valid with regard to private organizations. The question is interesting in the context of this study because we need to transfer basic ideas to the field of private organizations by means of analogies. We do not examine biota in any sense, but the combination of political species and the geographic space in which they sustain life offers interesting parallels to biology, and we meet challenges in relation to different kinds of political spaces later in this chapter. Regarding the potential of species to disperse in nature, it varies significantly, and, accordingly, there are different ways to conceptualize this character of species. Without oversimplifying things, we can rank these along a continuum. As discussed earlier in this chapter, some species are found across the world and thrive in different biogeographic zones, and these can be placed at one end of this continuum. These are usually dubbed cosmopolitan species (Cox, Moore, and Ladle 2016). Most species, however, have a much more limited distribution and have not adapted to diverse conditions. Indeed, if all or the majority of species had a cosmopolitan nature, this would render the basic idea of biogeography and the relevance of specific zones obsolete. There is much variation in the distribution of the overwhelming number of species, and comparatively few have an extreme capacity for dispersal.

Biogeography—studying large spaces 67 At the other end of this continuum, we identify species whose distribution is very limited. They are exclusively found in secluded environments, never elsewhere, and often in relatively small numbers, sometimes giving them an endangered status. Making up a small group within native species, they are commonly referred to as endemic species, and such properties have been detected both in classic and recent treaties of biogeography (Wallace 1869; Morrone 1994), but conceptual discussions remain (Fattorini 2017). Endemic species also seem to be contingent on specific biotic and abiotic conditions that are only provided in a very few places, and their dependence on these local factors restricts their mobility (Hermant 2013). Endemism is found in many places in the world, but islands often host endemic species, and the various barriers described earlier play a key role in shielding these rare species. This diversity in the dispersal of species teaches us many interesting lessons about biogeography and emphasizes that although various degrees of mobility exist, species are strongly connected with specific environments. Relatedly, species display considerable variation in terms of abundance. Sometimes species are represented by a large number of organisms, while in other cases they are constituted by very small populations, a condition that may increase their risk of extinction. Obviously, rarity makes it difficult to detect and observe such organisms, but it is also important to gain a better understanding of the individual species that have survived and how they contribute to the ecology in such areas. This insight from the biogeographic tradition is helpful to analyze private organizations that are found in much smaller numbers than organisms in nature and which can be very specific and adapted to only a single or few polities. As shown in this brief review, the concept of biogeography is central to evolutionary biology and the study of species. First, an understanding of species detached from geography would be meaningless, and it shows how general ecological principles are manifested geographically. The concept has an interesting history and displays a strong commitment to analytically bringing space and species together. It is not an attempt to enumerate observed species according to their origin, although systematic efforts are needed to document this connection. The biogeographic approach requires that we explore not only why some species thrive in certain environments and why they are inaccessible to others, but also what defines the boundaries of these different species and how they are exposed to different kinds of pressures. To understand many of these specific problems, an additional set of concepts are available. Second, the concept of biogeography is assisted by some auxiliary concepts that recognize and zoom in on specific factors. We discussed such examples as zone, barrier, dispersal, invasion, cosmopolitanism, and endemism as some of the important concepts found in the scholarly literature, but the biogeographic vocabulary is richer. However, the biogeographic concepts discussed here are more than sufficient to make advances, and the basic ideas behind them can be

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exploited to study private organizations. None of these concepts stands alone; rather, they are intimately related, and when examining a specific problem, such as the role of barriers, we foreground some aspects and abandon other dimensions. Depending on the concrete research problem, however, there is always an opportunity to activate related concepts. Reflections and translations As a concept, biogeography is not mentioned in the social and political sciences, and in this body of research, we cannot find any literature that reviews this particular concept or for that matter most of the related concepts presented in this chapter.1 It is perhaps too alien to merit attention. In spite of its apparent outlandishness, it has nevertheless huge potential for the study of private organizations in politics. To begin exploiting this array of ideas, reflections and translations are demanded, and we may relate the biological concepts to research within these disciplines that is concerned with the role of private actors from a spatial perspective. There is already a strong tradition of examining such units of analysis at different geographic levels. Thus, the discipline of comparative politics typically seeks to identify, study, and explain various differences and similarities in the performance of states, countries, and nations or in the properties of particular units within states, including a variety of private organizations, and in the institutionalization of many policy arrangements involving private actors (Hall and Soskice 2001; Bolleyer 2018; Siaroff 2022). Obviously, the comparative approach is helpful because a delimited space and its boundaries are acknowledged as relevant scenes for politics. Although country comparisons are by far not the only task in comparative politics, giving place to studies of entities below states, such as municipalities, and above states, such as international organizations, analyzing political phenomena at the level of states is often central. Indeed, the role of states is foregrounded in the study of international relations, especially perhaps in the realist traditions, and, in principle, this should offer good opportunities for scrutinizing the domestic level and its actors behind foreign policy. Although the input of various forces in society into foreignpolicy making is recognized (Evans, Jacobson, and Putnam 1993; Putnam 2019), the focus on the government apparatus and political strategy remain prominent. In other words, the domestic scene is important, but private organizations are generally sidelined in these theories, and, hence, we miss insights into their dispersal and diversity. We cannot claim that states and their territories are somehow the political equivalent to the biological unit of “biogeography,” but in both concepts we find an understanding of a given space containing a variety of interacting entities

Biogeography—studying large spaces 69 and various boundaries demarcating this space. The analogy between biogeography and the space-bound character of politics offers opportunities for an interesting dialogue, also indicating that the study of private organizations can be approached using the biogeographic toolbox. Compared to the traditions in the social and political sciences, however, a key lesson from the biological perspective is that biogeographic zones, uniting distinct categories of species and environments, tend to be rather hard and inflexible.2 In an evolutionary perspective, zones in nature are subject to challenges, such as invasions, but substantial changes are accomplished over an extended period of time, a point related to the gradual character of evolution. Likewise, changes may be observed in politics. Such changes can come from many directions. There is a scholarly interest in the diffusion of different policies, institutions, and models among countries (Evans 2017). A problem is whether these can be successfully transferred and implemented in an entirely new context, how they can survive under different circumstances, and what the consequences are for existing traditions. Some of this literature is concerned with the role of government institutions and therefore reflects evolution at the macro level, as discussed in the opening chapter, but may also be adapted to investigate private actors. There is both an element of imposing such practices on an existing system from the outside and an element of seeking inspiration abroad, giving domestic actors various active or reactive roles. Studies in the tradition of historical institutionalism will generally be skeptical about radical transformations and rather tend to emphasize the relative resilience of national institutions (Mahoney and Thelen 2010). Hence, this historical perspective is useful to evaluate the opportunities of invasive species and the persistence of native and even endemic species, although research in this perspective is held in another conceptual language. For the last decades, processes of internationalization and globalization have echoed some of the same themes and have also attracted much scholarly attention. An array of economic, social, and political globalizations, enhancing the mobility of people and goods, are likely to leave a strong imprint on private organizations. In many cases, such private actors are involved in regulation and contribute to global governance (Ronit and Schneider 2000; Büthe and Mattli 2011), and new global bodies are established to solve a variety of global problems. In this way, a specific level of politics emerges in addition to national and regional levels and deserves independent scrutiny. Often centered at the global level, such studies are concerned with the relative weight of domestic and international scenes and are therefore in part related to our undertaking, where the domestic spaces and actors are of primary interest. This branch of research shares an interest in problems also addressed in biogeography—where the focus is on the living world—and is concerned with the shifting positions of private organizations in existing domestic environments and their responses to the erosion of domestic spaces.

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If we first turn to the general processes and do not zoom in on particular categories of private organizations, internationalization and globalization may erode and dismantle existing domestic organizations in market and civil society. However, it is also likely that organizations are put under some kind of pressure when authority must be shared among different territorial levels, demanding adaptation to new conditions (Streeck, Visser, Schneider et al. 2006). In principle, a number of different scenarios can be envisaged. In cases where existing barriers are broken down and the specific traits of domestic politics wither away, this may, in principle, lead to greater homogeneity across countries and the extinction of domestically rooted organizations, hence a loss of diversity. In an extreme case, space may lose its meaning, and borderless societies will be the consequence (Wilke 2001). However, the implications of globalization demand systematic investigation. Indeed, developments do not necessarily lead to radical changes, and in many cases, actors continue their work, adapt to new environments, and find a new role in a global order. Whether these changes are good or bad, and who they benefit, raise important theoretical and empirical questions but also raise normative problems. In a somewhat similar vein, a small but useful literature grapples with the consequences of Europeanization on the member states, including their various traditions (Radaelli 2000; Börzel and Risse 2000; Brendler and Thomann 2023). Such impulses can come from a variety of sources, such as general integration, but also directly from EU institutions or from EU-based associations (Grote, Lang, and Schneider 2008). In fact, a specific vocabulary has been developed to capture whether EU rules and regulations show a “fit” or a “misfit” with existing national institutions and political and administrative practices. As with the general globalization literature, research on regional integration has in general not drawn on experiences won in the study of the living world and from where creative ideas could be transferred to examine politics, including the diversity of private organizations. Nor do we see attempts to contribute to this thinking. Therefore, there are some clear but missed opportunities to bring theories from different traditions together, even though there are definitely common themes. The study of biogeography provides useful knowledge about the stability of established biogeographic zones but also brings evidence of the mechanisms that maintain or disrupt them. Through this thinking, we may become more aware of and detail the consequences for individual categories of political species because their conditions can be exceedingly different. A range of specific issues need to be addressed when turning toward private organizations being exposed to various kinds of internationalization. This includes dimensions such as their funding, membership, and leadership, as well as their interactions with other private organizations and political institutions. On the basis of such analyses, we are able to determine under which conditions domestically based entities survive or, alternatively, uncover the factors that lead them to perish.

Biogeography—studying large spaces 71 Biogeographic perspectives will also be able to guide us when we explore whether new species or subspecies will emerge and successfully colonize new areas. If this occurs, the biological concept of “reproductive isolation” might be relevant to consult (Dobzhansky 1937; Mayr 1982: 270–275; Westram, Stankowski, Surendranadh et al. 2022) because relative isolation can be needed for organizations to establish their own trajectory and diverge from other and related populations with which they have previously been connected. Accordingly, new private organizations can emerge as part of a speciation process where variants, rooted in established organizations, evolve. Furthermore, we will have to inquire as to whether domestic organizations continue in existing domestic spaces or link up with international private organizations. As indicated, there is a scholarly interest in the performance of native organizations in the light of internationalization, whether this radiates from regional or global levels. Today, a variety of private organizations with domestic origins join actors outside their territory. An increasing number of civil society organizations seem particularly active at the international level, but often with a strong base in particular countries, where they gain major authority (Stroup and Wong 2017), and this may have consequences for their opportunities to enter and control new spaces. In such processes, various boundaries may be eroded, and, as a result, certain domestic private organizations may lose some of their traditional properties. However, these consequences remain understudied. Currently, we lack conceptual tools to cover all these variations, but the ideas of biogeography can help us understand at least some of the parts of this evolution. There is some variation as to whether and how the international dimension of domestic private organizations has actually been subject to research. When moving beyond single-case studies and attempting to present a broader picture of their activities, we find different forms of evidence. In some of the contributions discussed earlier, associations attract attention, but there are also other foci. Studies on political parties may note their international coordination with like-minded parties (Day 2006), research on think tanks may record national variation in their proliferation (McGann and Whelan 2020), and research on consulting firms may display variation in markets (Morgan, Sturdy, and Quack 2006). We know from studies of species in nature that the dispersal of different categories of species varies and that they meet different kinds of barriers and face different problems overcoming them. Parallel variations among private organizations must be anticipated. Biogeography is an important concept in evolutionary biology, and, as illustrated in Figure 4.2, key ideas can be translated and applied to politics and to the role of private organizations as a broad group of political species. A given geography provides a political space with certain properties (species and environment), which are exposed to external challenges but that are also surrounded by various economic, social, and political barriers that may prevent the invasion of species and thus protect native and endemic species.

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Biogeography—studying large spaces Invasive Species

Economic, Social, and Political Barriers Space: Native Species and Their Environment

Endemic Figure 4.2 Biogeography: translations to geographic spaces and political species

Admittedly, the concept of biogeography may sound strange outside the biological tradition, but it is not the concept itself but the basic thinking behind it that matters. In fact, there is fertile ground for the translation and application of the concept because the social and political sciences grapple with a number of parallel problems, albeit not in nature but in politics. First, the concept of biogeography addresses the role of geographic space in forming an integrated unity between species and the environment. This is an idea that has great relevance for political species. The research on private organizations is not very precise about geographic origins, often taking them for granted, and does not analyze the distribution and dispersal of many political species according to these criteria. However, national political systems form relevant spatial entities because they host particular sets of species and establish various kinds of barriers, defined essentially by the power to manage authority within a given territory, but there are many other features that help create and maintain such spaces, including cultural, religious, and ethnic factors. Second, the concept of biogeography, and the translation of it, relies on a number of auxiliary concepts. These are needed to emphasize the fixation of space and its stable yet dynamic character, and they include concepts such as barriers, invasive species, and endemic species. Such additional concepts provide detailed insights into biogeographic zones and are also useful when studying private organizations because they help us recognize many specific phenomena in politics. We can move the analysis a step further and advance from casual observation to systematic inquiry if in addition to questions about the general relationship between geographic space and species in biogeographical thinking, we interrogate the roles of barriers, invasions, and endemisms.

Biogeography—studying large spaces 73 Applications Biogeography is crucial for the distribution of species, and in the following section, we discuss some examples of how this is manifested using different concepts from the field of evolutionary biology. These illustrations show the great potential of this thinking and provide a better understanding of the role of geography. First, we explain that some kinds of private organizations tend to be abundant in certain geographies and of minor importance in other places, if not completely missing, and that the opportunities for establishing themselves in particular areas vary greatly. Second, we identify some of the key economic, social, and political barriers that prevent species of private organizations, as well as concrete organizations, from entering new geographies. Some barriers can be overcome, but others are more difficult to penetrate. Third, species that successfully cross such boundaries are labeled invasive species, a concept that captures the dispersal of private organizations that manage to enter and colonize new spaces and thus come to challenge existing organizations. Fourth, and following the general ideas of biogeography, we identify some private organizations as endemic species that have adapted to particular conditions and are present nowhere else. They are rare and testify to the rich diversity of private organizations. Biogeography: some basic patterns of organizational distribution

A hallmark of biogeography is the unity of species and their geographic environment, a perspective that is transferable to the distribution of private organizations in politics. A casual observation suggests that we find many similarities across countries committed to democratic values, yet on closer inspection, we also observe much variation in the organizational distribution of actors engaged in politics. Therefore, we have to move beyond the overall label of democracies and be guided by a more profound kind of curiosity to unravel these patterns. Establishing a general pattern to characterize the distribution of these organizations is obviously a huge endeavor, and this requires not only the integration of different scholarships that specialize in different kinds of private organizations but also demands new thinking about the adaptation of organizations to complex environments. To reach a better understanding of a given geography, it is relevant to draw on insights discussed in relation to some of the other chapters, such as ecology and adaptation, where the interactive perspective is foregrounded. As we know, private organizations are found in all parts of the world, but while some categories are present in some areas, they are scarcely represented or absent in other places. Such patterns are also based on strong historical traditions. To mention a few examples, social clubs have historically been associated with British political life (Thévoz 2022); philanthropic foundations, which draw their resources from large corporations (Goss 2016) but also from the

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civil society community (Suárez, Husted, and Casas 2018), are abundant in the United States; secular and centralized trade unions are especially common in North Western Europe (Ebbinghaus and Weishaupt 2021); and Catholic-based civil society organizations are familiar in Latin America (Romero 2001). Although each of these populations tends to be more common in these countries and regions, social clubs, foundations, trade unions, and faith-related relief organizations are not isolated to any of these places but are more widely distributed. We can also add a rich diversity of other private organizations to each of these large geographic spaces, and, accordingly, very complex patterns of interactions can potentially be mapped. Such findings from selected categories of organizations only provide small fragments of a much bigger whole, and they contribute to the overall picture of political life in particular geographic contexts. Although it is also an interesting task to study the power of these organizations, the job is not, at least not in the first round, to examine their influence, but basic knowledge about the existence of various private organizations and their abundance is, of course, one of the building blocks in such an exercise. Without such detailed knowledge, much is left for speculation. As demonstrated, some species are distributed in many countries, although they are more numerous in certain areas. However, interesting dynamics also exist. As an example of species with not only a fairly wide but even increasing geographic distribution, we have seen the emergence of large consulting firms. They have their historical origins in the United Kingdom and the United States (McKenna 2006), but the geographical distribution of these private organizations is by no means limited to these countries. Nevertheless, they represent huge economies and have offered a fertile climate for the proliferation of such new political species. They embody a strong belief in markets, and major steps toward privatization have been taken, factors facilitating the proliferation of consulting firms and other private service providers. The consulting business is complex and embraces a variety of professional services, from accounting and auditing to legal and political advisory functions, including certain advocacy activities. These specializations can be difficult to disentangle, but they all seek to improve the performance of their customers in the private and public sectors. As such, these private organizations play important roles in the market, but they also engage in politics, either by providing their customers with relevant knowledge and strategies about their political behavior or by engaging in a variety of policy fields and agendas themselves (Mazzucato and Collington 2023). In this way, some of their tasks unavoidably overlap with those of other private organizations. Quite tellingly, however, they do not present themselves as political actors, but we should remember that some species, through mimicry, seek to camouflage different aspects of their behavior, an idea that we discuss in another chapter but that can also be considered in this case.

Biogeography—studying large spaces 75 Barriers: keeping political species apart

To understand the thinking behind biogeography and how this can be translated and applied to politics, it is necessary to study not only the distribution of private organizations in specific countries and regions but also to analyze what actually keeps them apart. We therefore need to discuss various kinds of barriers. It is important to bear in mind that such barriers complicate or prevent the transfer of certain organizations and experiences. If absolutely no barriers were in place, it would, in principle, be possible to reach an identical organizational set-up across the world, or at least in countries ranked as democracies in some broad sense of the word. However, such homogeneity is not achievable, and we may draw on lessons in evolutionary biology to appreciate the role of barriers in maintaining various distinctive zones. As discussed earlier in this book, the number of cosmopolitan species is limited, and accordingly, for many species, it is only possible to survive in specific contexts, and if barriers are actually crossed, the chances of survival are sometimes meager. Obviously, barriers are not identical from place to place, and the issue of permeability is complex and will vary across political species. Furthermore, the time factor is important. Barriers are created through a long process in which it can be difficult to trace an explicit ambition to establish and maintain them, but it can be equally difficult to examine whether they are broken down. At a general level, various civilizations and cultures have a strong influence on the dispersal of political species, but we further need to examine particular private organizations and how they succeed or fail. To move a step further, we may recognize and operationalize key barriers, such as the traditions for the division of labor among private organizations, the traditions for the coordination of interests among these entities, and the traditions for the public regulation of different private organizations, including parties and associations. Therefore, barriers may exist at different levels of investigation, but we must also draw attention to the opportunities to evade those barriers, take an interest in the various vectors that may be used to that end (Canning-Clode and Paiva 2015), and enable the invasion of other species. It is an interesting lesson from biogeographic studies that relative isolation is a factor not only in nature but also in politics isolation matters. Having a political system with its own unique organizations and traditions, Japan offers a relevant example for the role of barriers. Although it shares many features with other democracies, it has been relatively isolated, limiting the spillover of organizations and ideas from abroad. In addition, language and religion, crucial factors in a culture, have posed important barriers that have consequences for sustaining original private organizations and for abandoning foreign models. Interestingly, however, there are various opportunities to break down barriers. Particular situations can provide a basis for the dismantling of barriers, but the

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question is whether these changes will be effective over a longer time perspective. After the Second World War, the Japanese political system, including the party system, underwent various kinds of change, demanded or encouraged by the United States as the occupation power that actually wrote the current Japanese constitution (Spinks 1946) and infused a higher degree of liberal thinking in the 1940s and 1950s. However, many developments have been influenced by independent domestic considerations (Hrebenar 2019). A kind of new party system emerged in the middle of the 1950s, but in some respects, it could draw on older traditions from before the war. New organizations, such as the influential Nippon Kaigi, liaising with political factions of the leading Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), also pledge to rewrite the old constitution. In this way, foreign models can be modified and certain barriers reestablished. Interestingly, other private organizations, including the predecessors to the current leading business association, the Japan Business Federation, were created after the collapse of imperial Japan (Keidanren 2023). Nevertheless, strong institutionalized cooperation between government and organized business, also typical of the past, remains a cornerstone of Japanese politics and gives certain private organizations a prominent role. Such cases show that it is difficult to transfer and implant new organizational models in a particular historical and political context. Indeed, established norms of cooperation serve as barriers to new ideas and practices and as a means to avoid invasive species. Invasive species: foreign organizations crossing boundaries

Biogeographies are contested when species of an external origin overcome barriers and enter and colonize a given area. Also in politics, private organizations with roots outside a specific political territory enter and add to or disrupt relations among existing organizations. Such species can be seen as invasive species when they erode the living conditions of native political species and, in the long run, outcompete them. Hence, the diversity and uniqueness of existing species and their interactions risk disappearing when such species—both active in their original and new environments—gradually take hold. Often, actors with a foreign background have superior resources and set new agendas, and it is likely that they are engaged in networks that promote their cause better than those confined to a specific territory. Such cases bear interesting parallels with invasive animals and plants in biology. Invasions date back in time and should not only be related to today’s processes of globalization. Engaged in various kinds of missionary activities or based on trading companies (Tucker 2004; Jones 2013), private organizations have in the past expanded into other countries and continents and settled there to win proselytes or markets, challenging existing organizations and traditions. To various degrees, they have also been backed by their own governments, but this

Biogeography—studying large spaces 77 assistance can vary considerably, a pattern demanding closer scrutiny. Today, many scenarios, however, are imaginable against the backdrop of globalization, where organizations spread their activities to new places. We find examples of private organizations that autonomously enter a geographic space and fully act on their own, but it is also feasible that such organizations liaise with local entities before and after their arrival. This opens up a variety of pathways where foreign organizations take control of local bodies and use them to their own benefit or where local organizations use this coordination as a vehicle to boost their own positions. These are, of course, two endpoints on a scale where different aspects of invasion must be accounted for, and a variety of intermediary points need to be established to capture the different characters and steps of invasions. These must be defined with regard to private organizations to determine under which conditions invasive species succeed, when they fail, and which stages they actually go through if they prevail. An interesting case has revolved around the Open Society Foundations (OSF), a US-based foundation led by the philanthropist George Soros (Open Society Foundations 2023). This organization has established itself or funds activities in many countries, and as a foundation with some kind of think tank-related functions, ideas of open societies are developed and campaigns launched or supported according to its programs. The organization may pose a challenge not only to other organizations with similar or overlapping activities but also to organizations such as political parties that seek to influence various agendas and values in society. The OSF has had various conflicts with the Hungarian government, particularly around the funding of the private Central European University in Budapest. The general strategy of the foundation has been to softly influence domestic and regional agendas, although its effectiveness can be discussed (CorreaCabrera 2021), and of the Orbán government, in office for three consecutive election periods, to keep the organization at bay by establishing various legal barriers (Plenta 2020). From the perspective of the government and of the leading political party in the country, Fidesz, the OSF has clearly been seen as an invasive species. Although the university today has accreditation as a private higher education institution, it has faced considerable opposition and has moved the majority of its activities out of the country. The various legal measures adopted have been questioned, but they characterize an ongoing battle. A major feature is, however, the clash between liberal and conservative ideologies, causing a schism between foreign and domestic actors and showing some conflicts in globalization via private organizations. An important normative and political debate is fixated on the incursions of the Hungarian government into democratic institutions, illustrating practices of illiberal democracy, but this debate tends to ignore another major problem, namely the conditions and survival of domestic organizations in the light of new foreign organizations with roots outside the country. This case therefore reflects

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a more general problem of invasive species, which is limited neither to our time nor to a particular country. Endemic species: the endurance of unique private organizations

The role of endemic species offers a different story about organisms in different geographic environments. While invasive species have an external origin and, at least in the early stages of colonization, are alien to a new place, endemic species are not only familiar with but also restricted to a given area, and a certain degree of rarity is typically associated with endemism. In politics, we find many examples of endemism with certain kinds of actors limited to a particular space and sometimes also restricted to a certain time in history. The space and time dimensions can guide us in our search for and observation of endemic private organizations. A precise definition of endemism is, however, needed in the case of political species. At the international level, we find a number of political internationals, such as the conservative International Democrat Union (IDU) and the socialdemocratic Socialist International (SI) (IDU 2023; SI 2023), and in many countries, they have affiliates. In a sense, they are, of course, quite unique: They are based in different places, organize different members, and have different roles in the political system. Accordingly, the same species seems native to a number of countries, but it would be inappropriate to characterize them as genuine endemic organizations confined to a particular space. We find endemic species among private organizations because these actors emerge in and are shaped by often rather specific economic, social, and political conditions and by concrete patterns of interactions with other species. Although these environments display certain commonalities across geographies, they also manifest a range of peculiarities molded by history. With the concept of endemism, we are therefore able to appreciate this category of species and distinguish such unique species from other kinds of species. Instead of analytically ignoring such exceptional domestic actors or taking them for granted without devoting further attention to them, we need to recognize the close relationship between geographic space and private organizations. An effort is demanded, however, to identify and classify endemic species to reach a better understanding of their proliferation. This is a huge task because, despite the rarity of the individual endemic species, there are numerous taken together, and there are many examples to draw upon. A historical example of endemism that also reaches into contemporary politics is the Peronist movement in Argentina (Andrews-Lee 2021). This movement took off just after the Second World War, when Juan Peron was elected president and held this position until the middle of the 1950s when he was ousted by a military coup. Although he returned to the country in the 1970s and the movement

Biogeography—studying large spaces 79 was very much associated with his person, it is now driven by other political figures adapting to new circumstances. The movement has retained some of its original traditions, and this political phenomenon is not narrowly restricted to a specific time (Murillo and Zarazaga 2020) but has in recent years been particularly associated with the charismatic and current vice president Cristina Fernández de Kirchner. In fact, these personal features of the shifting leaders add to the movement and give it a particular character. The movement was and is headed by a political party called the Partido Justicialista (PJ) (PJ 2023). This is the only party of its kind, and it has adapted to the special economic, social, and political conditions in Argentina. In addition to the PJ Party, Peronist ideology has traditionally also characterized large parts of the trade unions, so the movement is not limited to political parties as private organizations but encapsulates other organizations. Consequently, it seems that a further number of organizations can be ranked as endemic. Obviously, many private organizations enjoy strong recognition by the Argentinian government and engage in cooperative relations. Therefore, we can say that endemic species in politics do not just exist in their own right but also form part of an overall “package” characterizing a specific geography. At the same time, as the movement demonstrates a strong capacity to work in Argentina and keeps a unique profile, it reminds us that imitating the movement and the thinking behind it, not to mention its historical legacy, would not be possible in other countries. Although certain political traits can also be found in other countries, including Latin America, of course, the movement and the individual organizations behind it display interesting facets of endemism. Conclusion In biogeographic thinking, an integrated part of evolution theory, the unity of space and species is key. Enclosed geographic zones are characterized by great stability but are also subject to change, and species may undergo various modifications, eventually leading to new political species or subspecies. From the outside, a range of other species may cross barriers, some of them with a colonizing effect. Over time, they may be incorporated into the environment, while others are less successful. In these processes, some native and endemic species may succumb, leading to a loss of diversity. A number of concepts developed in evolutionary biology can be translated to study private organizations as political species. Indeed, specific economic, social, and political conditions in a given geography are critical for the survival and diversity of political species, and various mechanisms help to preserve existing species and the ways they interact. Although strong political

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traditions prevail in the countries or regions that we examine, it would be naïve to ignore or underestimate external pressures, and political spaces, and the species hosted there, are exposed to many challenges. Indeed, the deterioration in the population of some species, or their ultimate extinction, will impact other species with whom they compete or cooperate and thus change important political patterns. There are many interesting parallels between nature and politics, and we are therefore able to use and adapt the conceptual toolbox when examining individual cases. First, we saw that certain categories of private organizations are found in some countries and regions, while they are weakly represented or absent in other parts of the world. This broad picture, addressing different kinds of organizations, is not just a snapshot of the current state of affairs but also displays some stability in the distribution of organizations over time. Equivalent patterns are found in nature, and at a general level, this shows the potential of biogeographic thinking. Second, these different spaces exist as separate entities in which life is possible for some organizations, but they are also kept apart by barriers. In many cases, crossing these barriers is not relevant and feasible, but under some circumstances, this is both possible and beneficial for some species, and we used political parties and associations in post-war Japan as an example of the porosity and resilience of the political space. Many economic, social, and political variables must be examined to fully understand these barriers. They are of course different from the living world, and much work remains to define them and relate them to different categories of organizations. Third, if barriers are broken down, this opens up for the arrival of political species not rooted in the local environment. In politics, there are many ways that foreign actors enter a new space, and although such mechanisms are different from nature, we can use ideas from evolutionary biology. Such invasive species may outcompete different native organizations or make their conditions much more challenging, but settling in a new place is not always successful, and the OSF was used as an illustration to show these conflicts. Over time, however, there is a chance that invasive species will become integrated into the new environment. Fourth, in some cases, we find interesting evidence of endemism. This concept is relevant to categorize different private organizations that are rare and only found in a single, specific geographic space where they fulfill particular roles. The Peronist movement in Argentina was shown as a case of an endemic species, and this example testifies to the great diversity of political species. Given the many and different historical developments, even in countries that follow a general democratic tradition, this uniqueness is perhaps not so surprising, but further effort is needed to document, categorize, and conceptualize endemism in relation to private organizations.

Biogeography—studying large spaces 81 Notes 1. Interestingly, we also find the concept of “political geography” (Ethington and McDaniel 2007; Cox, Low, and Robinson 2008), which is concerned with how human political activity relates to different spatial conditions and how geography is politicized. This tradition does not connect with the biological tradition, and inspirations from the study of species are not a theme because human activity alone is central, but there are definitely unexplored connections between the disciplines of geography, political science, and biology. Using the concept of political geography, having various connotations does not make sense in our context, however. The concept of “biopolitics” is also available but addresses the regulation of the physical properties of species, typically humans, but it has different applications and will be confusing to activate in this study (Liesen and Walsh 2012). 2. Cultures, briefly discussed in relation to macro approaches to evolution in Chapter 1, can also be viewed as boundary shaping, but these can be relatively fluid. Although it is not an either-or, there seem to be more parallels between biogeographies with their physical boundaries and states with their legal boundaries.

5

Niche—exploring small spaces

The concept of niche largely refers to a special ecological space, a certain secluded part of an ecosystem, and its diverse resources that are controlled, perhaps also shared, and successfully exploited by a particular species. The concept belongs to the large vocabulary of evolutionary biology, and we may see the niche concept as denoting very small spaces, unlike concepts such as ecology, which highlights general principles across different kinds of areas, or biogeography, which seeks to understand space in the context of large geographical zones. All species have a niche that they rely on, and this chapter therefore adds a further dimension to the discussion of space. Admittedly, it is not fully correct to say that niches just reflect space and can simply be understood in these terms alone because niches can vary in size, and niche also refers to the functional specialization of species. Nevertheless, niche is typically associated with a relatively confined space in relation to other space-related concepts, and therefore it makes sense to utilize insights from such “small worlds” in nature and translate them to the study of private organizations, which also tend to specialize and occupy niches in politics. Biological species specialize and establish their own domains; they find and realize a niche where they can breed, access, and exploit available resources better than other species, exhaust other parts of the niche, or enter and utilize the niche at other points in time, all important skills that enhance their chances of survival. These efforts must not be seen from a narrow time perspective, however, and as with other phenomena in nature, niches are created and maintained over evolutionary time. Also, private actors specialize and carve out their own niches. They may do this by organizing particular interests, setting specific agendas, occupying certain policy fields, or handling selected tasks; all activities are developed in the context of the prevailing economic, social, and political conditions. Such spaces are not secured once and for all, and continuous efforts are needed to uphold and defend them. In many ways, it seems as if some private organizations are highly mobile. Depending on their resources, they overcome certain barriers and move

DOI: 10.4324/9781003212546-5

Niche—exploring small spaces 83 into new areas. However, we also find a range of private organizations whose mobility is limited, and, hence, we should expect significant variations. In this chapter, we first survey the biological approaches to niche. The concept of niche belongs to the huge vocabulary in evolutionary biology, where it is discussed and applied to the interactions between species and their environments. Certain aspects of this spatial dimension have already been discussed in previous chapters, but the niche concept provides more insights into this issue. As a second point, we discuss how it can be translated and meaningfully applied to the role of private organizations as political species. Interestingly, there are certain traditions in the social and political sciences for using the niche concept, but it must compete with other adjacent concepts, and the biological ideas are by no means fully exploited. The third section provides some illustrations, showing that the concept can be employed in many contexts to describe and analyze the political engagement of a variety of private organizations. Accordingly, we show how different categories of organizations establish and mold their niches through an array of mechanisms, and in these processes, they take a more or less active role and encounter other species in their ambition to control a niche. The chapter finishes with a conclusion that stresses the potential and limitations of the concept. Biological perspectives The concept of niche is one of the major building blocks in evolutionary biology to denote space. It is related closely to overarching concepts such as evolution and ecology, dealt with in the beginning of this book, and it helps us better grasp certain aspects of the pace of evolution as well as the interactions of species with their biotic and abiotic environments. In many ways, it has been tempting to address niche issues in previous chapters simply because they are intimately connected with these other concepts, but the niche idea deserves special consideration, and it also has its own intellectual history (Pocheville 2015). The concept can be approached in many ways, and things are complicated because it is related to a variety of concepts that address the spatial dimension in different ways and at other scales. Beyond ecology and biogeography, discussed in the foregoing chapters, we find a number of further space-related concepts. In brief, these include the concept of ecosystem (Pickett and Cadenasso 2002), which attends to a number of biotic and abiotic factors and the balances in nature and thus captures an even smaller area than biogeographic zones. Concepts addressing even smaller spaces, such as habitat (Odum and Barrett 2021: 311– 315), concerned with the physical environment in which species live, are also important to consult.1 These various concepts refer to different kinds of areas and also ask complementary questions about species and their environment. The emphasis on either species or space varies and reflects different analytical

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traditions, in part represented by different scholarly communities in biology. We will return to a few of these debates further in the following. Although here we concentrate on the niche and the niche concept, niches are always part of more encompassing entities, a lesson that is also useful to carry over into the study of private organizations. Accordingly, we must be sensitive to the interaction between political species and space at different levels of politics and not just accept legal boundaries as the only and determining feature. Inspiration can be sought in the subtle approaches to space in nature. Thus, niche must be conceived as something highly restricted but still conditional upon such factors as the overarching principles of ecology, the structures of geography, the resources of the ecosystem, and the habitat that provides a physical place for species’ interactions.2 However, the precise definition is open to various interpretations (Sales, Hayward, and Loyola 2021). In general, a niche is seen as a specific place in nature, a tiny and exclusive site in the ecosystem, such as a spot on a mountain range, a part of a stream, or the structure of a plant where a given species obtains the specific kind and amount of resources needed to survive and reproduce. Examples of such specializations are provided in Figure 5.1. We must be careful not to exaggerate the narrow character of niches and the species attached to them. Although many species are, indeed, specialized, we also discover species with broader profiles, and thus we can refer to “specialists” and “generalists” (Büchi and Vuilleumier 2014). Accordingly, some species may be tolerant to a variety of conditions in nature, and, hence, they gain access to a variety of habitats where they can find the necessary resources to sustain life (Mayr 1963). They are less dependent on specific forms of environment, and this gives them more opportunities, but this makes them neither superior nor inferior Flamingos

Ducks

Avocets

Figure 5.1 Different bird species—different niches Source: “BioNinja”

Oyster Catchers

Plovers

Niche—exploring small spaces 85 to species with other profiles; it just provides them with different traits. Therefore, there is no general indication of species having better chances of survival with either of these profiles (Thompson 1994: 59–76). Plant-pollinator interactions are epitomized as a classical niche (Phillips, Peakall, van der Niet et al. 2020) and therefore crucial to the survival of both. Such interactions are common in nature and are studied intensely, but the lives in niches refer to a larger variety of cases, displaying significant variation. Conceptually, we may distinguish between specific (pairwise) interactions, which are distinct and relatively easy to observe, and diffuse (multiple) interactions, where important background factors that are harder to identify will shape niches and eventually influence the short-term and long-term co-evolution of species (Thompson 2014). Thus, studies can embrace a diversity of interactions and provide different perspectives on niches, and, accordingly, different research strategies are required to analyze such processes. It is important to emphasize the prominent but variable role of species in the definition of niche, as niche always involves a combination of space and species. Scholars had also dealt with actual niche problems in nature, integrating space and species, before the concept was actually coined. While acknowledging the huge complexity in nature, however, we may put emphasis on either element depending on concrete research questions. The status of the niche is open for theoretical debate, and the emphasis on space or species varies somewhat in the literature. These debates, briefly addressed earlier in relation to other pertinent concepts, are also useful for our later discussion on private organizations. On one hand, it can be argued that niches actually existed prior to their discovery by relevant species and thus could be vacant (Grinell 1917). Thus, we may conceive of the niche as a habitat where some species live or settle because they find there the required resources to sustain life, and in the literature on niches, this perception can also be found. In a simplified form, there seems to be a “before” and an “after,” but such mechanisms and stages are complex and can be difficult to trace. Maybe certain species have even occupied a given space for a very long time, leading to a strong match between highly specific biotic and abiotic environments and selected species that are well adapted to each other. It is fascinating to actually find these combinations in nature, map them conscientiously, and examine the factors that keep them together. If we just acknowledge their occurrence in established niches, however, we tend to record the organisms or populations that are merely found there. This is a static perspective and tends to give weight to the passive role of species and the environment. On the other hand, an argument is that niches must first be created to achieve the status of a proper niche (Elton 1927). We may see the niche as a place that species do not just become attracted to and inhabit but that they actively shape in their own distinct ways. In an interactive perspective, species assist in the creation of the biotic and abiotic environments and vice versa, and thus the niche

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will be molded over time as the conditions are not always perfect. An important factor is that species, when already active in a niche, must find ways to exploit the resources in the most effective way and therefore specialize. Whether a niche is actually fully vacant is questionable, but there can of course be a time before a species succeeds in building a niche and, in this way, transforms a space into a realized niche. Other species are also active in these processes, exploiting other or overlapping parts of the niche. In essence, niches do not exist independently of the various relevant species, but radical changes would jeopardize the adaptation and survival of species. We have now referred to the niche as constituted by strong relations between environment and species, and this pattern also captures important aspects of the niche, both as a concept and as a reality in nature (Hutchinson 1957). As soon as we have recognized the principal role of these interactions, we can begin characterizing them in greater detail and specifying the different positions of species in a given niche. On one hand, there is the possibility that a single species largely controls a particular niche and is alone in exploiting it through interactions with the environment.3 Many different scenarios may have led to this situation. The species was perhaps the first to discover and prepare the niche, and this pioneering effort has ejected other potential species, although it has only been in use for a relatively short time in evolution. However, there is also the probability that a species mastering the niche has defended it for a longer duration of time because it has molded it in ways that makes it accessible or, in any case, is best suited to exploit it, ousting other pertinent species. Once a niche is shaped, it may be difficult for other species to enter and challenge established species. Typically, a species lives in and masters the conditions of a specific climate or elevation that other species are effectively barred from, issues we discussed in relation to ecology and biogeography, and the niche is characterized by an additional number of specific features. If we tend to emphasize space, then “the classic definition of the niche, as a property of the environment, is preferable to the one that considers it a property of the organism” (Mayr 2001: 169). Indeed, features in the environment make the niche attractive for only a selection of other species that try to occupy and mold it. The character and amount of the resources in a given niche always display certain limitations, and this will have an effect on how niches are guarded. We may gain important insights into how species keep their niches if we study individual species and focus attention on the control dimension. On the other hand, different species may in one way or another have access to and divide the available resources within a niche. There are many species in nature that should be able to find and exploit a demarcated space, creating important niches for their survival, and they meet other species in this context. As there is a high degree of specialization among species, however, it is likely that they will not utilize the niche in exactly the same way or draw on the very same resources, and in a way, they have their own niche within the same space.

Niche—exploring small spaces 87 Furthermore, they may take advantage only of some parts of the niche or only occupy it in specific time dimensions, such as when nocturnal or diurnal animals are active at different times of the day or when migrating birds only use a niche in some parts of the year. Accordingly, some segments of a niche or some of its resources may be shared by different coexisting species through different kinds of interactions. In such cases, we may also refer to overlapping niches (Chase and Leibold 2003), suggesting that a multiplicity of species interact and benefit from a joint niche. The relations among these species can take a variety of competitive and cooperative forms, and some of the aspects will also be dealt with in relation to the competition concept in the next chapter. In this context, we must again bear in mind the active role of species in expanding and diversifying, or potentially also degrading, the resources available for themselves and other species. In such cases, it is relevant to draw on the concept of “niche construction” (Peterson, Soberôn, Pearson et al. 2011), which emphasizes the active part played by species and also highlights the wider consequences for the distribution of the resources in a given niche. These general ideas about the resources in a given niche may serve as an important inspiration for studies on private organizations in politics. As with the other concepts discussed in this book, niches have attracted considerable attention. Many studies in evolutionary biology seek to understand the minutia of niches and grapple with mapping and interpreting the proliferation and behavior of species in a spatial context, but this does not necessarily imply that they always highlight the niche concept per se. Nevertheless, such detailed investigations invariably add to our knowledge about niches in nature, compelling us to ask broader questions and look for general patterns. In some parts of the research community, scholars have a vibrant discussion of the niche concept and how it should be understood and applied. For obvious reasons, it is not possible to highlight all dimensions contained in the niche concept but only point to a few key ideas with the goal of utilizing these in the context of political species. A variety of concepts are available to denote space, and the niche concept offers an interesting perspective. First, all species need some kind of niche, one of the many traits that are useful to characterize their different ranges. However, the conditions under which they discover and draw on resources vary considerably. Some niches demand little effort to be seized, while others require more energetic molding to be realized. Indeed, the idea of niches being shaped before they become fully valuable to species is important, an issue we will return to in the following. In this process, species will adapt, and maybe this will lead to the evolution of new species. In other words, a niche is not just a place where we find certain species but also a place for speciation. Second, species exploit very concrete environments, and they control and construct a given niche in specific ways. Some species are specialists, and others are generalists, but the establishment and maintenance of niches are demanding for

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all species. However, spaces can also be shared by multiple species and have the status of overlapping niches. Such niches may contain many different kinds and amounts of resources that are available to and sought by different species, and these patterns will have a strong impact on the interactions among species. To understand these exchanges, we must bear in mind, though, that not all resources are required to the same degree, and asymmetry is an important hallmark of niches. Reflections and translations In the different branches of evolutionary biology concerned with space, the spatial dimension is broken down into some smaller entities. Therefore, we must not only recognize the general role of the ecological context, or the more specific geographical conditions, but also pinpoint the lives of species at the disaggregated level of the niches to which they are particularly adapted. In the social and political sciences, several concepts are also available to capture different spatial dimensions and even embrace different kinds of private organizations. The general idea of a connection between space and actors is a first step in analyzing how organizations thrive in particular areas of politics. We here move beyond the connection between actors and the geographic space of countries that was addressed in our discussion of the biogeographic concept and search for concepts that have some affinity with the niche concept and comprise small spaces. Different scholarly traditions have developed concepts that in one way or another recognize the role of small spaces, and to varying degrees, they are also explicitly related to some kind of physical space. Concepts such as “regulatory politics” (Wilson 1980), “policy field” (Stone and Sandfort 2009), and “subsystem” (Howlett and Ramesh 1998) primarily refer to circumscribed areas of public policy and the inherent features of policy, while concepts such as “sector” (Schmitter 1991), “domain” (Schmitter and Streeck 1999), “organizational field” (Diani 2013), and “networks” (Knoke 2018) are to a considerable extent orientated toward the different private actors that inhabit and shape these variable spaces in political life. Unfortunately, there is often a lack of dialogue among them and no unifying concepts, but, each in their way, they provide interesting analyses of space and actors in politics. Hence, some concepts are less concerned with the various policies adopted and the related policy process but take a stronger interest in the actors, although this does not necessarily include a major focus on private organizations, and a range of public and private actors may be scrutinized. Whether the ambition is to map the various private organizations and thus provide an accurate picture of their presence in different institutional contexts or to examine how they actively shape the space alone or together with other interested parties also varies significantly. In fact, these concepts tend to be particularly strong in recording the presence and interactions of different private organizations in specific cases and

Niche—exploring small spaces 89 at specific points in time, but they are less suited to capturing their evolution. The niche concept in evolutionary biology, however, offers an opportunity to connect space and time and enrich our analysis. Although these literatures underscore the need to delimit specific spaces, they do not explicitly draw on experiences from nature. Different transfers of biological ideas are, in fact, possible. A basic question, however, is whether the word “niche” itself is applicable in political contexts or whether it has some connotations that make the transfer problematic, an issue that we briefly consider. Semantically, “niche” may suggest a kind of marginal space that actors turn to or are pushed into, and, in some ways, this displays a kind of weakness on behalf of the actors. If niche is understood in this defensive sense, the transfer of the concept would not be successful because the biological understanding of the niche concept does not necessarily imply any kind of sanctuary but is an appropriate space for obtaining resources and sustaining life. Furthermore, it would not reflect the real life of political species because they definitely have many different roles in relation to niches. Interestingly, the social and political sciences have in some cases drawn explicitly on the niche concept, and this gives rise to specific reflections and applications. At a more general level, organization theory began to grapple with “niches” (Hannan and Freeman 1977; McPherson 1983; Carroll 1985) and has been followed up by a series of contributions, but studies in this tradition have not linked up with and used the many other space concepts in biology. Indeed, niche does not stand alone as a space-related concept in the biological study of space but is strongly linked with various concepts related to larger spaces. In nature, niches are always a part of something larger, a point that can benefit research on political species. However, the explicit utilization of niche concepts has in some cases served as an inspiration for the examination of certain categories of private organizations in politics, generally of the same species, most typically associations, often referred to as interest groups, and social movements (Langton 1987; Gray and Lowery 1996a; Levitsky 2007).4 This perspective is developed particularly with inspiration from population ecology as developed in general organization theory and stresses the role of niches as providers of resources, but other aspects are also considered. Today, direct inspiration from biology has become rather thin, but in accordance with biological thinking, it is recognized that niches are not always fully exploited, and thus there is a difference between the “fundamental niche” and the “realized niche” (Aldrich and Ruef 2006), in which organizations with similar traits compete for the same resources. This argument, however, does not fully reflect niche thinking in biology and also deviates from the situation facing private organizations. What we need to add when examining the diversity of private organizations, however, is that the drawing on resources in a specific niche is not only challenged by similar organizations in need of identical resources, the perspective offered in organization

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theory (Hannan, Pólos, and Caroll 2007), but also by private organizations belonging to different political species will require resources in the same niche. If we formulate the problem in terms of “overlapping niches,” private organizations will experience many such overlaps because different populations of the same kinds of private organizations seek access to the given niche and because different kinds of private organizations are active at some point in time. In nature, species will typically find a number of other species that potentially seek some of the same resources in a niche and not only meet organisms belonging to the same species. This perspective can be transferred to the political realm, where different political species exist within a niche. In an evolutionary perspective, attempts to control a niche can be permanent or be observed until the niche is seized. Either way, we may expect the co-occurrence of different species. Therefore, niche thinking in the study of private organizations, whether these have their origin in the market or civil society, will benefit from theoretically considering the roles of both single species and multiple species and from empirically examining the many niche practices of organizations. In this context, it is an important lesson from evolutionary biology that niches are dynamic entities influenced by species and that “niche construction,” addressed earlier in this chapter, deserves greater attention. Eventually, this will open up new avenues for the study of speciation because the active molding of niches will lead to the emergence of new species adapted to the changing environments, and this allows us to recognize the role of niches in gradual evolution. Some attention has been directed toward this active role in organization theory, but there is a clear bias toward the role of firms and their patterns of competition (Carroll, Dobrev, and Swaminathan 2002). For our purposes, it is more helpful when ideas from organization theory are applied to interest groups, actually associations, and with regard to the construction of niches, the factor of identity has been examined (Halpin 2014). The active role of species necessitates a differentiated understanding of private organizations in niches. As discussed earlier, an important question is whether we find various overlaps between organizations, and this is a theme that is widely discussed in both the classical and modern literature on interest groups and associations, where different approaches are found in the pluralist (Truman 1951) and the corporatist (Schmitter 1974) traditions, although the niche concept itself is not necessarily activated. Apparently, many organizations are engaged in the same areas, but they also try to avoid competition through specialization. Therefore, a variety of distinctions must be made between the different conflictual or collaborative relations among private organizations. Indeed, we may imagine that in the occupation of a given niche, species build relations with a single actor or a multiplicity of actors, from which they enjoy certain benefits or experience various detriments. These ideas from biological studies of niches are also translatable to our case and will be addressed in the next chapter on competition.

Niche—exploring small spaces 91 To further characterize niches, we can distinguish between “specialist” and “generalist” species, and also in organization theory, reference is to “niche width” (Freeman and Hannan 1983; Dobrev, Kim, and Hannan 2001; Hannan, Pólos, and Caroll 2007), where organizations belonging to the same population display variation in how broad or narrow their niches are. In this tradition, however, a special focus is on firms in the same market, but other examples can be found. Again, a major problem is that only the same kind of actors, although with different profiles, are ranked as specialists or generalists. The emphasis on generalists or specialists in evolutionary biology, however, allows us to recognize the overlapping activities of very different kinds of private organizations, a key insight that gets lost if we follow the single-species approach in organization theory. In politics, we find many examples of generalists and specialists. Some private organizations concentrate on a single issue and invest significant resources in developing policies to address it, a feature found in think tanks focused on particular agendas or in social movements with a specific commitment, while other organizations are concerned with a variety of issues and expand their activity to cover an increasing number of policies. We know that peak associations are compelled to coordinate across a larger group of members and manage a wider group of issues compared to specialized associations (Hiscox 2020). In the comparison of private organizations, we also recognize that some political species, such as political parties, are inclined to address a broader range of issues. Thus, we observe trends both toward specialization and toward generalization, bearing in mind that one organization is not necessarily more advanced than the other. While evolutionary biology can serve as an important inspiration and stress the huge variation of niches, little guidance is offered on the concrete empirical investigation of such niches. When we move from the realm of nature to the field of politics, we need to define such niches in greater detail, but we can learn from biology that niches are not one thing: species are very different from each other and so are their biotic and abiotic environments. Without delivering an exhaustive list of properties, it is clear that private organizations must define their membership or donorship domains and decide who they seek to organize and represent. It is further necessary that they engage in a variety of policy fields, agendas, and issues to forward their interests and values. In these processes, organizations enter into many kinds of relationships, and the niche concept is relevant to defining such interactions within a space. Analytically, we can scrutinize each of these niche elements alone or embrace all of them, and in the real lives of the organizations, we will see that these are connected, a point we already addressed as mosaic evolution in an earlier chapter. With a specific membership base, private organizations tend to become involved in certain issues and also engage with certain organizations and political institutions. Hence, there are many reciprocal influences in the niche profiles of private organizations.

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The translation of the niche concept to the role of private organizations in politics warrants a number of reflections on the different roles they play in this particular spatial context. There are many inspirations, and various niche-related concepts can guide us, but first and foremost, general niche thinking is essential. As shown in Table 5.1, some of these ideas can be further explored by examining the basic status of private organizations as political species (are organizations just present, or do they actively mold the niche?) and their acquisition of resources (are organizations in control of resources, or do they share them with other species?) and hence place species in the different cells. Table 5.1 Niche: small spaces and political species Species Status

Resource Acquisition Control

Share

Present Active

First, biological studies of niches add an important dimension to the exploration of space, discuss the degree to which niches are vacant and whether species are actually present, and even actively mold the niche through various creative efforts. The space-related concepts we find in the social and political sciences recognize the presence of private actors in particular areas but do not raise the same questions about the different roles within small spaces. It is recognized that such spaces are places where populations of organizations live and seek resources, but we must remember that they are also important places for speciation, and this evolutionary perspective could be given stronger emphasis in the study of private organizations. Second, there are many ways in which species in nature can control and mold a given niche, exclude other species, and gain privileged access to resources. Also in politics, private organizations are, indeed, highly specialized. In a rich number of cases, different political species interact in complex ways within overlapping niches. Some space-related studies in the social and political sciences focus attention on a single political species, or, in cases where the ambition is to embrace several kinds of species, only a limited group of organizations and overlaps are scrutinized. Obviously, not all relations are equally important for each species, but we must also study cases where private organizations belong to different political species and share niches.

Niche—exploring small spaces 93 Applications The niche concept can be translated and applied to various political species embedded in a diversity of environments, but these ideas and concepts need some adjustments when transferred to a very different field of research. We can begin with a limited number of circumstances where niches, as highly specific spaces, provide essential resources for selected private organizations but where an active role is also taken by relevant organizations in controlling or sharing resources. First, some political species, such as professional societies, seize a niche that is available and has apparently not been exploited before, and, hence, no great effort seems required to establish itself in this particular space. Second, other species need to undertake strong and active work to mold a niche so that it serves their resource requirements, and in relation to energy policy, new organizations in sustainable energy have over time redefined this particular niche. Third, in some contexts, a single political species manages to control a niche with no or few challenges, and some environmental organizations have established specific agendas and action forms as a particular hallmark. Fourth, there are many situations where species occupy and exploit the same niche, and the case of future internet platforms demonstrates the engagement of different private organizations in the same or closely related issues. Control of niches: professional societies

In some niches, private organizations almost effortlessly seem to occupy the space. If they have held the niche for a long time, the historical process leading from a possible earlier vacancy to current occupancy can be hard to trace. Under such conditions, other organizations may have neither the ambitions nor the means to enter the niche, and the established actors seem to be the obvious and uncontested “owners.” Apparently, those controlling the niche are in a specific sense present but not engaged in a true struggle to seize or maintain the niche. However, this does not rule out that they are active and capable of defending it should they face such exigencies. This kind of control may suggest that the occupying organizations are generally passive, but this impression does not capture the full situation, and, thus, we risk overlooking important dynamics. If we primarily seek to provide a kind of snapshot, however, we can establish the actual presence of controlling species and also define the characteristic features of the niche. In this way, a basic mapping is possible, and interesting patterns will emerge—all experiences that will improve our general understanding of how private organizations inhabit niches. A group of private organizations that appear to have established particularly clear niches are the professions. In many areas, we find private organizations in

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the form of scientific societies that are knowledge-based and dedicated to the organization and representation of specific professions (Abbott 2014). Some of these organizations base their activity on strong historical traditions, and the historical factor is always important in niches. However, the strength and ability to control niches apply not only to the classic professions, such as doctors, engineers, and lawyers, that contribute to many forms of problem solving in society but are also relevant for a diversity of other professions that have become increasingly important with the development of knowledge infrastructures in modern societies (Tan and Subramaniam 2009). Through specialized education and training, many professions have established themselves. Such societies serve as forums for the exchange of experiences, and various rules and norms are adopted to define the tasks of societies and to guide individual members (Freidson 2001). Access to these organizations is given only to people meeting strict membership criteria, and the individual professionals, and sometimes the societies themselves, are formally granted a license to operate by relevant authorities, a strong gesture that enables the organizations to take on and defend a given niche. Professional societies rarely take part in politics in a more orthodox sense, or at least they have not been recognized in this role. However, scientific societies both represent the interests of their members in many contexts and manage to set important agendas in their area of expertise. In this capacity, they further become involved in the formulation, implementation, and evaluation of certain areas of public policy. In many countries and at various international levels, we encounter a plethora of scientific societies rooted in the medical profession, such as the World Medical Association (WMA) (2023) and the Council for International Organizations of Medical Sciences (CIOMS) (2023), which build on national associations and societies. In different ways, the concerns of the medical professions are built into these organizations, which, together with other professional societies, have strong links with the World Health Organization (WHO), the designated United Nations (UN) body in this policy field. There are general societies that embrace all kinds of physicians under their umbrella, such as the Australian Medical Association (AMA), and thus organize and speak for physicians across different specializations. In addition, we find a huge number of societies that refer to particular sections of the professions and cater to different somatic and psychiatric diseases, and in Australia, we find almost 20 such “specialty groups” represented in the AMA as the peak organization in the field (AMA 2023). Because the medical profession is so extremely diverse, a range of other countries can also boast a significant number of societies that each have the authority to organize and represent knowledge. The societies tend to be research based but address many educational, ethical, and financial

Niche—exploring small spaces 95 issues of importance to health policy, and, accordingly, they become involved in politics in many specialized ways. This is a strong background for controlling niches that no other organizations are interested in or have the capacity to enter. Molding and some control: activist environmental organizations

In some cases, a single political species controls a niche and extracts resources almost unchallenged. Organizations undertaking similar tasks are missing, and organizations with ambitions to manage a selected part of this space cannot seriously contest its role. However, it is difficult to determine the capacity to control niches, and we find different kinds of interactions and molding, which calls for a flexible approach to studying small spaces. Thus, a leading role can be achieved under different circumstances and does not exclude the presence of other kinds of private organizations, but for a single body to achieve such a position, other private organizations will have to take a relatively subordinate role. Establishing some kind of dominance takes time, and unlike the first case, reaching more or less full control of the niche is complex and not based on a kind of formal license provided by political and administrative institutions. Accordingly, organizations must struggle harder to gain and sustain control, and a more visible element of molding is demanded. There are many ways to win and cement the position of private organizations in a particular niche. The ability to occupy a specific domain rests on a variety of factors, which can be studied alone and in combination, and, in the following, we briefly consider the policies and style of engagement that characterize private organizations in gaining some control of niches. Private organizations are unequally represented across policy fields and are not involved with the same intensity. Inspired by evolutionary biology, we may distinguish between generalists and specialists in the occupation of policy fields, but even for generalists, there will be a number of limitations. As a rule, many private organizations are closely connected to certain policy fields, where regulation really matters, but are completely absent from other areas (Wilson 1980), where they have no firm interests or capacities to formulate relevant policies. In this way, we observe a division of labor, not agreed but tacitly accepted, and in each policy field, we thus observe a different set of actors. Apart from policy specialization, there are many other dimensions of specialization, and together, these different traits help us define individual species. Combining different kinds of knowledge and driven by an activist style (Scarce 2016), some civil society organizations occupy a special niche in relation to environmental policy because they master this particular role better than any other organization with civil-society roots. They can be differentiated from organizations that also seek to build up an important knowledge base but communicate in a less confrontational manner.

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Among the many private organizations in the complex area of environmental policy, Greenpeace is a well-known actor in domestic and international politics. With an original base in Canada (Weyler 2004), it has spread its activities to many countries around the world, where national chapters exist (Greenpeace 2023b). Today, Greenpeace is no doubt one of the most prolific in this field. Organizations, both at the national and international levels, predate Greenpeace by several decades, and there are particular environmental issues that are taken care of by other organizations, but Greenpeace embraces a range of new issues, including climate policy, and represents these in unique ways. Over time, it has expanded its activities, and the organization can be seen as a generalist one, adept at moving in and out of issues demanding attention. Accordingly, it is present in multiple scenes and links the domestic and international dimensions, but it is strongest in Western countries, where it can appeal to a critical audience. As an organization with a radical bent and an uncompromising stance compared to many other environmental organizations, it has launched a number of spectacular activities, criticized by some and praised by others, and it enjoys the support of specific segments in the environmental movement. Both governments and corporations may be targeted as part of this activist strategy: governments for a lack of appropriate regulation and corporations for a lack of environmentally friendly practices. As a private organization rooted in civil society, Greenpeace is not in a position to occupy a niche simply because of its policy engagement. Additional factors must take effect. It is an important trait of Greenpeace that it combines environmental policy with activism, and it has managed to carve out a niche where it can play a leading role and, in this context, outrank other organizations. Molding short of control: sustainable energy organizations

Whereas some niches seem almost born with specific organizations and are easily captured by these, other niches are contested and demand active effort on the part of private organizations. Such cases yield additional insights into the question raised in evolutionary biology as to whether niches host important resources in their own right and thus exist prior to being molded by different species, or whether niches are created by virtue of active species mining them. In many ways, it is easier to observe these processes if we study the contemporary formation of niches and record the emergence of new cases than if we try to reconstruct their historical emergence, although this is of course necessary from an evolutionary perspective. New niches are continually being formed in politics owing to many economic, social, and political dynamics (Bardach 2006). In such cases, established actors adapt and extend their commitments, and new actors define their role from the beginning. If, for instance, organizations have previous experiences from related niches, they may have certain advantages, but new private organizations, not weighed

Niche—exploring small spaces 97 down by traditions, can in some cases move more freely. In both cases, however, they can engage in new and adjacent niches using available experiences. The degree to which niches, when found and created, need to be significantly molded can vary considerably, but the active element is always relevant to consider in the analysis, no matter whether the desired domain relates to the inclusion of members, the establishment of knowledge bases, or the formulation of policies. In these processes, private organizations tend to interact with a number of other actors who seek to mold the niche to their own benefit, but it is of paramount importance if these different actors have the same ambitions to strive to exploit the same part of the niche and utilize it in the same way. In such cases, niches, or at least some part of them, may become shared, and interactions become competitive, as described in the next chapter, but there are other and less conflictual patterns of interactions where actors also enter into various forms of cooperation. Over the last decades, energy sustainability issues have become increasingly important (Scoones 2016), and specific private organizations representing interests in energy policy have emerged to address these problems. We may perceive these actors as a political species within the broader group of private energy organizations. These new actors somehow enter an already-established field of energy politics, where existing niches for many years have been occupied by a range of other actors, including those representing traditional energy sources in the form of fossil fuels. At the same time as new actors try to find a place in energy politics, actually a broader niche, they have to define and mold a new and much more specialized niche suited to their specific concerns, namely sustainability politics. If they successfully mold such a niche, they may eventually become leading organizations in this part of energy policy, and today there are many smaller niches even within sustainability politics. A number of countries have seen the formation of associations catering to solar energy as one of the many efforts of sustainability industries (Hoffman 2018), which is an international business, and a global association, the Global Solar Council (GSC), is available for coordination (GSC 2023). From the perspective of niche building, many dimensions must be observed by these solar associations, and one of the basic challenges concerns their membership domains. They must appeal to relevant firms and avoid that other associations involved in the sustainability industries organize the same group of firms, as this will erode their position and impede access to resources. Associations can furthermore use this position to represent these firms in an authoritative way and influence energy policy, especially sustainable energy policy. Even if successful, these solar associations are not in a position to control a broader space but only a relatively small niche. Although they seem unchallenged in organizing most parts of the specific industry and thus controlling this space of the niche, other private organizations in business are involved in

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sustainability issues, not to speak of the even broader area of energy policy. Control by these new associations is, therefore, achieved in some respects but moderate or missing in other parts of this new and expanding policy field. Overlapping niches: active molding by multiple private organizations

To capture some key elements of niche building, this last illustration discusses complex situations where several actors are involved in molding a niche. In many political spaces, we find a plethora of private organizations that in one way or another are active in organizing and defining policies. These have different points of departure. Some niches are occupied by single-species populations, and we often discover that private organizations are characterized by significant specialization. To evade competition, which can be detrimental, many organizations define their role in the niche in many subtle ways to secure resources, and, as in nature, specialization is prevalent in their evolution. Other niches host different categories of organizations and therefore constitute multiple-species populations, according to biological terminology. One thing is to understand intraspecific relations, and another is to capture interspecific interactions among species, but to gain a full picture of the situation in a niche, it can be necessary to embrace connections within and among political species. Of course, such diverse interactions are much more difficult to examine than cases in politics, where one particular species, or even a single actor, seems to be active. There are many instances of overlapping niches, and these overlaps can be major or minor in character. The various domains of private organizations are not always fully demarcated, and in some aspects of their work, they come into competition. Maybe a certain fraction of their members are of relevance to a number of other organizations; perhaps some funds are available to a handful of organizations; and possibly certain aspects of public policy are important for a larger group of organizations. In all such cases, niche overlaps may occur. A time dimension must also be accounted for. Overlaps are not necessarily permanent but can be temporary and challenge the position of organizations for a certain period of time. This brings additional complexity to the analysis. The issue of the “Metaverse” is an example of an overlapping niche where different political species are actively influencing agendas in an early stage of policy evolution. The ideas and projects behind this future Metaverse imply the creation of a single platform connecting existing internet services by means of virtual- and augmented-reality technologies (VR/AR 2023). A huge question is whether major corporations, including the giant tech companies, can define relevant technical and ethical standards to manage the Metaverse, or whether government action and the coordination of states are needed to regulate this transboundary technological and social infrastructure.

Niche—exploring small spaces 99 Apart from the major corporations that see themselves as developing and managing the Metaverse, a variety of private organizations have been active in these processes so far. In principle, political parties have a key interest in this issue, especially if they belong to the group of parties that are in office and become particularly active in future regulation. Because the ideas behind the scheme and the tools available for regulation are still in their infancy, the policy development of political parties is still wanting. Interestingly, other private organizations seem to play a stronger role. Some think tanks are involved and have published various reports to describe the state of affairs, identify key problems, and, to some extent, also propose initiatives. For example, the organization Chatham House has been active in identifying and scrutinizing the problems of a future Metaverse (Chatham House 2022). Also, consulting firms are key players. As another example, the private organization Accenture, one of the leading global consulting firms, has presented various analyses and thus contributed to the public discourse (Accenture 2023). These are just some examples of the organizations present in this emerging issue area, but they show that, at this stage at least, issues are not addressed by a single actor or a single category of actors. Instead, multiple political species have been involved, and this is an interesting case of overlapping niches. The actors come from very different corners but take an interest in the same problems, and there is no real established and generally accepted division of labor among them. It is hard to predict whether some kind of specialization among the actors will evolve, but it is a feature of many policy fields that not only private organizations, such as parties and associations, are active in a niche, but also a variety of additional players, such as think tanks and consulting firms, are involved. Conclusion The niche concept is important in the study of species because species occupy particular spaces in nature, and these are essential for their survival and evolution. Other spatial concepts are available, and the niche concept therefore adds key insights to the concepts of ecology and biogeography already discussed. In politics, private organizations seek to specialize and carve out niches. They may do this by representing particular interests, setting specific agendas, occupying certain policy fields, or solving particular problems, all roles that provide them with different profiles. Many private actors are highly mobile, and, depending on their resources, they overcome barriers and move into new areas in flexible ways, but there are also limits to the scope of their activities depending on their status as generalists or specialists. We do not have a full grasp of these different roles and boundaries, however. It goes beyond the scope of this chapter to deliver an exhaustive classification

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of the positions of private organizations in their respective niches, but from the illustrations provided, some experiences on niche building show interesting variations between the status of species and their acquisition of resources. These findings encourage us to further develop the niche concept with regard to private organizations. First, an important discussion is whether niches are vacant or whether niches always require an active effort on the part of species to emerge and solidify. This foundational problem is also relevant in our case, and it is clear that some private organizations find it comparatively easy to enter, define, and just become present in a niche. Many professional societies, especially the most established ones, such as the medical professions, have found but also created niches and successfully kept them. To fully examine such niches, however, we must not only focus on the current role of organizations but also study the early time of the niche and clarify the possible vacancy and construction of the niche. Second, we find many cases of molding when organizations are engaged in a niche, and niches are not constant but change over evolutionary time. Accordingly, private organizations must also work actively to preserve such spaces. Although niches are not maintained without some kind of engagement, this can be difficult to nail down, and greater effort is needed to define the different forms of construction. As shown, there is definitely a niche for environmental organizations with an origin in civil society, but they also have very different profiles. Organizations with an activist profile, such as Greenpeace, may be distinguished from other actors and control a specific part of a niche. Third, we can think of species as playing different roles along a continuum, indicating different forms of engagement in their relevant niches, but much depends on how we define these spaces. Many species tend to be highly specialized and occupy narrow spaces, but there are also generalist species that are involved in multiple or broader niches. In energy policy, we observe many private organizations with a basis in fossil fuels or sustainable energy, but it is hard for them to control this whole policy niche. If we examine the actors only engaged in renewables, such as solar energy, we detect rather few organizations and they seem able to better control this particular niche. Fourth, in some cases, a single species is leading and fully capable of controlling a niche, while in other cases, different species tend to share a niche. The presence of several species in a niche, however, does not necessarily imply that they all compete for the very same resources because a niche is a complex space and species specialize to avoid harmful competition. However, it is possible to observe different kinds of overlaps. It is interesting whether such overlaps change over time, and in the case of the Metaverse, a very recent issue, a diversity of private organizations are trying to define this emerging niche and how it is governed.

Niche—exploring small spaces 101 Notes 1. A further number of concepts grapple with space, but space-related concepts are given slightly different meanings in research, making it difficult to establish a clear hierarchy of spaces. The ambition here is to acknowledge different kinds of spaces and not explain and clarify all space issues. 2. In some studies, the concept of biotope is used to capture the physical environment of a community of species, while habitat is rather seen as the physical space of a species. 3. It is possible that a certain resource is obtained in relation to the abiotic environment, but species also interact with other species (in the biotic environment) through different forms of cooperation to secure a specific resource. These interactions may involve one or several other species and build on combinations of animals and plants. Some of these features are also dealt with in the chapter on competition. 4. The key original source of inspiration for this perspective is no doubt Hawley’s pioneering effort in sociology (Hawley 1950). It still offers many refreshing ideas, but apart from the fact that Hawley did not seek to draw on all available concepts offered at the time of his writing, many developments have taken place in evolutionary biology since then.

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With this chapter and the next two, we turn toward the different kinds of political species and their interactions. This theme was already addressed in relation to the time and space dimensions in the foregoing chapters, but the characterization of species and their relations now take center stage, and additional concepts are considered. Competition is a basic condition in nature and governs the lives of individual organisms, populations, and species. If successful, they get easier access to a number of resources, affecting parameters such as breeding, population size, and migration. If unsuccessful, they succumb, sometimes with the ultimate consequence that entire species become extinct. However, there are different processes of competition, and no matter how these are arranged, they influence the selection and evolution of species, with the effect that new species may arise over evolutionary time. Competition seems to be straightforward, but it is, in fact, rather complex. As with some of the other concepts discussed in this book, the term competition is used colloquially to denote some kind of conflictual relationship, but in evolutionary biology, it has precise yet in some respects still contested meanings. Furthermore, there has traditionally been a strong focus on the role of competition in the lives of species, but it is crucial that we recognize other principles. Thus, various forms of cooperation are equally essential and shape the basic conditions of species, and, therefore, specific concepts are developed to capture such experiences. Competition should not be interpreted too rigidly. Head-to-head competitions can occur, but there are many other forms of competition where the organizations seek to exploit different opportunities in their institutional environment without direct confrontations. Hence, in a number of cases, selection works in somewhat gentler ways. We must also account for a variety of cooperative interactions. Depending on the patterns of competition and cooperation, private organizations may lose or gain positions, giving them a more central or marginal role in politics. An important factor is that environments, including government institutions, can significantly influence competition by favoring certain actors or policies. DOI: 10.4324/9781003212546-6

Competition—researching multiple interactions 103 These ideas and concepts facilitate a nuanced analysis of private organizations. Although various scholarly approaches are available in the social and political sciences, many fresh inspirations can be translated from evolutionary biology to study private organizations more specifically. This chapter first seeks guidance in evolutionary biology and asks how competition in nature is understood and conceptualized. Since it is not possible to extract all key ideas, a few major principles will be addressed. Apart from identifying dimensions that are helpful in the analysis of competition, we also emphasize the often-sidelined role of cooperation, again taking a variety of forms and building on specific concepts. Following this discussion, we examine how competition, a very broad concept of course, has been discussed in the social and political sciences, and we also ask how competition is specifically related to private organizations in political life. A special task is to show how concepts from evolutionary biology can be adapted to examine these actors and what additional insights this may bring to existing research. The third part of the chapter is devoted to the application of the competition and cooperation concepts, and four illustrations are provided. Each highlights specific interactions, such as competition within species and competition among species, as well as direct and indirect forms of competition, and in these cases, aspects of cooperation will also be considered. The conclusion of the chapter stresses how different ideas from evolutionary biology are useful and can advance the study of private organizations. Biological perspectives Competition is an enormously complex issue, but it is possible to sketch at least some major features. Essentially, competition arises when there are insufficient resources to sustain the lives of organisms belonging to the same—or in some cases, different—species and also provided, of course, that they successfully avoid falling prey and escape potential enemies who threaten their very existence. Indeed, if resources were always available and plentiful and enemies were completely absent, the struggle for survival would in many ways not be necessary. Very often this issue is phrased in terms of “natural selection” or just “selection,” and selection and competition are of course intertwined, but in the different historical treaties, there has always been some variation as to which concepts are foregrounded (e.g., Darwin 1859; Wallace 1871; Mayr 1942; Kauffman 1993), but selection addresses a broader spectrum of issues than does competition. In fact, we can see competition as an integral part of the overall selection process, where cooperation, to which we will return later, also counts, but we can also gain relevant insights through the selection concept itself. Selection is related to the continuous production of variation among organisms. Because certain organisms will have some minor advantages over others, they are able to exploit these in different situations and in different environmental

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contexts. Hence, organisms with such advantages tend to survive, but to achieve these benefits, an active effort of competition is observed. Selection has many specific issues (Keller 1999), but in a basic sense, selection and competition are active in the early process from conception to birth and in the later process in the meeting of organisms with their biotic and abiotic environments (Mayr 2004: 133–157), an issue we dealt with in the chapter on ecology. An important and controversial issue is what the consequences of these processes are. This has been clarified by referring to “elimination,” yet another concept that discusses key elements of competition. Accordingly, “evolution by elimination provides a far better explanation for the actual course of events during evolution than ‘selection of the best’ of the classical evolutionary literature,” and “actually a selection of the best and elimination of the worst take place simultaneously” (Mayr 2004: 135). In research, we find many ways to address the role of competition, much of which has been simplified through the “survival of the fittest” dogma, and over time, the scholarly literature has offered important nuances to unwrap the relationship between competition and selection (Schmalhausen 1946; Gould 1989). Until now, we have not differentiated sufficiently among the various kinds of interactions that influence competition. There are many ways to classify these, but without simplifying things, it is possible to distinguish between two key versions: direct competition, which has also been labeled interference competition, and indirect competition, which has been referred to as exploitation competition (Keddy 2001). These can be seen at the endpoints of a scale, where it is possible to identify intermediate forms, and different concepts have been discussed in the pertinent literature. In the case of direct forms of competition, organisms and species openly interact and therefore meet each other in physical terms, and various forms of aggression become manifest. As shown in Figure 6.1, two common red deer stags compete in the mating season (the rut), and this is perhaps one of the many cases that epitomizes direct forms of competition, but, of course, competition has many different forms. These relations become hostile because they compete for more or less the same territories and resources, including mating, and because there is a limited supply of these resources. It is a specific challenge to identify and classify the character of diverse resources and hence stipulate the relevant forms of competition (Keddy 2001; Grace 2012; Yodzis 2013). Furthermore, the demands of competitors on different resources do not have to be identical, but some kind of overlap will bring them into conflicts. Such confrontations do not necessarily lead to the death or extinction of some of those involved. However, this can be the consequence of distinctly antagonistic interactions, and therefore direct competition will generally benefit some and harm others. Competition can also have immediate effects, and these can be clearly observed, but some long-lasting impacts are harder to identify.

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Figure 6.1 One form of competition—direct competition among common red deer Source: Lars Krabbe

In the case of indirect forms of competition, different organisms and species also interact, but they do not confront each other in the same, often aggressive ways. Under these circumstances, it is equally necessary to specify the type of resources and what they mean to different organisms and species. In these contexts, some organisms will invariably be better positioned to exploit the available resources and master the environment. The drawing on resources may diminish the quantity and quality of the available collection of resources, and other organisms and species will therefore either be barred from exploiting them or have reduced access. It can be discussed, however, whether competition in such cases will take on the character of a zerosum game because there are instances where organisms or species interact with their environment in ways that do not necessarily reduce a given resource. Beyond the distinction between direct and indirect competition, there are other key concepts that embody the various forms of competition, and a classic division is between intraspecific (within species) and interspecific (among species) competition (Keddy 2001; Adler, Smull, Beard et al. 2018). This understanding is enormously helpful to define competitive relationships—also with regard to private organizations—and not just to refer to the rather vague term “competition,” which is too wide-ranging to cover all the specific cases of potential antagonisms in nature.

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Darwin formulated the general principles behind these forms of competition in the following way: “As species of the same genus have usually but by no means invariable, some similarities in habits and constitution, and always in structure, the struggle will generally be more severe between species of the same genus, when they come into competition with each other, than between species of distinct genera” (Darwin 1859: 76).1 Accordingly, the profiles of species, characterized by variation in “habits,” “constitutions,” and “structures,” lead to different kinds of interactions, and we must observe the variable character of competition, which can vary in depth and frequency. Thus, many factors must be considered in the analysis of competition, where stronger similarities spell stronger competition. The picture becomes even more complex when we take into consideration that species undergo changes over evolutionary time and that some evolve into subspecies no longer fully identical with their ancestors but not yet constituting new full species (Mayr and Diamond 2001: 119–178). From this, we can infer that competition also pertains to these different subspecies and, following Darwin, that it should be more pronounced as more organisms belong to either the same full species or the same subspecies. Of course, this complexity makes it very complicated to establish an exhaustive list of competitive relationships, but the classic dichotomy of intraspecific and interspecific competition is a starting point and also reminds us of further intermediate forms of competition. We have now discussed the concepts of direct and indirect competition and the concepts of intraspecific and interspecific competition, and it is important to reiterate that these are not identical and cannot substitute for each other. This suggests that organisms belonging to the same species may compete in both direct and indirect ways and that individual organisms within different species may also compete both directly and indirectly. We will return to these key principles, which have strong relevance in defining and analyzing interactions, later in this chapter. These different categories of competition may perhaps give the impression that competitive relations are basically constituted by sets of two actors, so-called pairwise interactions. Exploring these can serve as an analytical strategy and bring interesting findings about the organisms or species concerned. However, there are a variety of interactions (Thompson 1994: 12–22; Dodds 1997). Organisms and species are involved in an encompassing array of relations in nature, and a more complex strategy is to capture all of them to gain a profound understanding of the diverse patterns of competition—a very challenging exercise, of course. Such a strategy also corresponds with the ecological approach discussed in an earlier chapter. In this brief presentation of the biological perspectives on competition, we have so far eschewed a crucial relational aspect and in a way taken for granted that competition, in whatever form it appears, is the only or at least primary principle guiding interactions. This was done in an attempt to fixate on competitive

Competition—researching multiple interactions 107 dynamics and explain some of the key concepts. To recognize the full character of interactions in nature, however, we also need to take the many and varied forms of cooperation into account (Boucher 1985; Weiblen and Treiber 2015), and further recognize many neutral relations. Thus, various kinds of cooperative relations are also of profound importance, and they are needed to acquire critical resources. As with the concept of competition, cooperation is a difficult concept. Biology displays some variations in the usage of the concept, however (Sachs 2006; Dugatkin 2002). It is subject to various interpretations and has different empirical dimensions. Nevertheless, it is possible to distill some major points that will prove helpful in analyzing the lives of private organizations in politics. First of all, we must recognize that cooperation is not the only word or concept to designate various kinds of cooperative relations. Depending on context, other concepts are used more frequently. Thus, “most commonly mutualism is used to denote interspecific benefit, whereas cooperation is used somewhat more vaguely to denote benefits in a within-species context” (Bronstein 2015: 8). This suggests that the concept of cooperation is used to mainly characterize conditions between individuals belonging to the same species2 and that there is some hesitance toward the broader usage of the concept of cooperation, indicating an inherent ambivalence in the biological tradition. Maybe it would be more straightforward, as with the concept of competition, to distinguish between intraspecific and interspecific cooperation, but such a route has not been taken. The conceptual history has followed a more curved path in which other concepts have been formulated, partly attributable to conceptual priorities partly due to the difficulties of synthesizing empirical findings. Scholars also tend to come from different research traditions. The concept of mutualism is generally applied to classify various kinds of mutually beneficial interactions, hence the name, but some kind of differentiation is required to account for the fact that relations are only in certain situations and to certain extents equally beneficial for the parties involved. In fact, there is strong variation in the reliance of species on such mutualistic interactions (Chomicki, Kiers, and Renner 2020). As with the discussion of the concept of competition, we shall further recall that these cooperative relations can be established with larger or smaller subsets of the biotic environment and be applied to characterize pairwise or more encompassing types of interactions. The issue of whether it is actually obligate for the organisms to enter into these relationships in order to survive or whether it is just one of the factors that enhances the performance of different species must also be considered. There are many different features to account for in the analysis of interactions. Symbiosis is another useful concept that helps in understanding the intensities of mutualism.3 Accordingly, symbiotic relations are referred to when they are of long duration and indispensable to the survival of species, whereas non-symbiotic relations are used to characterize strong but less frequent biotic interactions

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(Bronstein 2015; Douglas 2015). Indeed, it is important that the concept of symbiosis is not used randomly to embrace all kinds of relations but has a restrictive usage. The concept, originating in biology, may occasionally be found in other contexts but tends to have other and less precise meanings, and it is therefore essential to bear in mind the various distinctions in biology when translating and applying this concept to the study of private organizations. We have now discussed a few key dimensions of the concept of competition, which is a central principle in evolutionary biology. The exact meaning of the concept, however, is often somewhat diffuse, and if we uncritically refer to this broad concept, we will miss many categories of interactions. Fortunately, biology has in many ways enriched this concept and given us some valuable and differentiated tools with which to examine interactions. First, biological research distinguishes between direct and indirect competition, suggesting that competition occurs both when organisms and species come into physical contact and when they compete without meeting each other, although they struggle for more or less the same resources. A further distinction is made between intraspecific and interspecific competition. In nature, there is a struggle between organisms belonging to the same species and those belonging to different species. The importance of these can vary across species and over time, but in nature, species meet challenges arising from both kinds of competition, and, essentially, they all need to be explored to gain a full picture of competition. In concrete research projects, however, it is useful to highlight certain aspects. Second, competition is not the only principle guiding interactions between a few or among many species. Cooperation is an equally important principle because cooperative relations are crucial for the performance and survival of species. While the general concept of cooperation is used to characterize relations between individual organisms belonging to the same species, there is a strong tradition of applying the concept of mutualism to describe beneficial relations between individual organisms from different species. The latter and mutualistic interactions can further be understood in terms of their symbiotic or non-symbiotic character. Interesting tools are therefore at our disposal, and in the next section, we discuss how these inspiring ideas can be added to the existing approaches in the social and political sciences. Reflections and translations There is a rich and diverse body of literature on different aspects of competition—and cooperation—in the social and political sciences, capturing many interactions. Research has dealt with these principles at different levels of investigation, and we may distinguish between competition at the individual level, at the group level, and at the societal level, which are largely concomitant with the analytical approaches to evolution, referred to in the introductory chapter as

Competition—researching multiple interactions 109 micro, meso, and macro levels. We will briefly address a few micro and macro aspects before turning to the meso level. Under the notion of methodological individualism, a rich diversity of scholarship examines individual behavior, some of which is found under general labels such as game theory or collective action theory. Although much is focused on individual gain and competition, methodological individualism may also highlight the innate social behavior of humans and thus downplay competition in favor of various kinds of cooperation (Bowles and Gintis 2011). Therefore, the individual unit of analysis does not necessarily imply self-interested behavior (Hodgson 2002). Competition at the individual level is dealt with somewhat differently across disciplines because the objects under scrutiny vary. Building on classical economics from at least the time of Adam Smith (1776) and carried on by liberalists such as John Stuart Mill (1863), basic ideas of individualistic behavior and “economic man” have been fixed in the economics discipline but come in a multitude of variations. It is, however, also carried over into other sciences, and as an example, competition for voters in “political markets” is central to the study of political parties. In economics, however, a key unit of analysis is also firms, and thus a problem is to understand the behavior of firms in competitive market environments, although various aspects of cooperation may also be filtered in. In some cases, inspiration is sought in biology (Hirshleifer 1978; Görtz 1999), and some endeavors are even made to utilize paradigms from economics in studies of biological phenomena (Hammerstein and Noë 2016), initiatives that may come from economists or biologists with a leaning toward economics, and sometimes a special vocabulary is developed. In organization theory and management studies, humans and firms are also key units of analysis, and as discussed earlier, these are important in certain studies on population ecology where competition involving similar organizations is analyzed. At the societal level, scholars are occupied with units of analysis, such as cultures, nations, states, and civilizations, where issues of competition and cooperation surface, and dramatic confrontations have been epitomized in the “clash of civilizations” (Huntington 1996). Competition is a perennial factor in these contexts, sometimes with the ultimate consequence that crises develop into armed conflicts, issues scrutinized in yet other clusters of research. In the various schools of international relations, the theoretical emphasis on conflict and cooperation varies, which is also related to the fact that relations depend on concrete historical situations and institutional contexts. Competition has also been examined with regard to international organizations, which compete for agendas, domains, and resources (Ries 2017; Lake 2021), and here inspiration from general organization theory, not biology, is sought. In general, the study of the macro level has fostered its own concepts to capture different

110 Competition—researching multiple interactions relationships. Only rarely do we find direct inspiration from biology (Tang 2013). There are definitely some common themes running across the different analytical levels, such as the dual forces of competition and cooperation, but there are also particular issues pertaining to the meso level, to which we shall now turn. When studying private organizations, it would in many ways be easier to consult studies in the social and political sciences that have actually applied biological concepts to this level rather than rely on more general treatises on various aspects of competition. Indeed, we also find some contributions, yet the literature on private organizations tends to be rather compartmentalized. Accordingly, the best strategy is to discuss how the concept of competition and elements of cooperation are discussed with regard to the different kinds of these political species. A wide body of scholarship is concerned with interest groups, in principle encompassing all kinds of associations and movements but often restricted to associations.4 A classic approach is represented by the pluralist schools of thought, where interactions tend to be seen through the lens of competition. The sheer and overwhelming number of groups found in countries with freedom of association is emphasized. In relatively few cases, studies draw on ideas from biology, always translated via organization theory (Lowery and Gray 1993; Haider-Markel 1997; Holyoke 2009), where issues such as population density and resource acquisition are key indicators of competition in relation to similar interest groups. Such organizations have a number of overlapping constituencies and often try to recruit the same members, for which reason they come into competition over the same resources. Likewise, they also seek influence on more or less identical political issues, which is also a factor propelling competitive relations. Indeed, a focus on members is always important. It is useful to highlight empirical dimensions of competition, and such a view is also in accordance with the perspectives in evolutionary biology. In this respect, it is possible to draw on organizational ecology within organization theory to address competition and cooperation among business associations (Lang 2009). However, we need to know whether these interactions are characteristic of different types of organizations and, hence, intraspecific or interspecific in character. Of course, there are many versions of the pluralist paradigm, and only in a very naïve version does it resemble an ideal-type market with free competition. It has been reformulated over time and has been applied to different contexts, but the competition paradigm remains a major tenet, although a number of modifications have been observed (Lowery, Baumgartner, Berkhout et al. 2015a). However, a differentiated understanding of competition is needed, and hitherto unexploited tools are available in the biological tradition. Other studies on associations put greater weight on the coordination of interests through a limited number of organizations with the ability to monopolize

Competition—researching multiple interactions 111 and control smaller or larger domains (Schmitter 1982). Accordingly, competition is in some respects more effectively contained by actually specializing in coordination. Strong coordination is by no means a new phenomenon among associations, such as the whole guild tradition, which in many parts of the world lasted for hundreds of years, built on this institutional legacy, and was supported by public authority. Unlike the pluralist approach briefly described earlier, corporatist thinking also attributes a much stronger role to the state as a crucial element in the environment of associations. Hence, government bodies may both encourage and coerce associations to organize and represent interests in ways that diminish competition within many social and economic fields. In the language of evolutionary biology, we could say that associations seek to reduce intraspecific competition. However, this does not rule out competition among associations rooted in very different interests in society, such as labor and business (Brandl and Traxler 2010). In such cases, we may see competition as interspecific as it concerns different groups in society, but in industrial relations, employers’ and workers’ cooperation is at the same time institutionalized, emphasizing the cooperative element. Interestingly, there seems to be a potential for interpreting such empirical findings using concepts from biology, but studies in the corporatist tradition have rarely made explicit use of such insights. In the different approaches to interest groups and two major directions that have briefly been reviewed, competition and cooperation are certainly important themes, but they are evaluated differently and also with different emphasis on environmental factors. Questions about the character of interactions are important to resolve, and, hence, it is useful to draw on and apply biological concepts that recognize different kinds of competition and cooperation. However, these conceptual deficits are not only apparent in studies concerned with interest groups, given a variety of names in the scholarly literature, but are also evident with regard to other categories of private organizations engaged in politics. Thus, another major cluster of organizations consists of political parties, as dealt with in a specific literature. In democracies, where freedom of association is a basic right, it is obvious that there will be different interests and values in society, and one of the major forums for this conflict is clearly the party system, which, of course, varies considerably across countries. Under the circumstances of democratic contestation, one-party systems are unlikely to prevail, and hence we see various forms of competition and cooperation in dominant party systems, twoparty systems, and multiparty systems (Sartori 1976; Mair 1996; Wolinetz 2006). Although these classifications are in many ways helpful to analyze competition and different modes of cooperation, they are still underdeveloped to capture the full diversity of interactions. Thus, stronger attention to interactions among parties that represent different social classes in society and relations among parties that come from more or less the same social segments is needed, and such an approach could benefit greatly from the concepts developed in the biological tradition.

112 Competition—researching multiple interactions There are furthermore a range of scenes for interactions between political parties. Usually, these relate to electoral competition, where struggling for voters, winning elections, and controlling government are essential, but there is also competition at the stage of agenda setting, where parties compete for different issues (Green-Pedersen 2019). In other words, party competition and cooperation are complex and can be operationalized to cover different activities, and, in principle, this is in accordance with the study of competition and cooperation in evolutionary theory, in which competitive and cooperative interactions constitute a multidimensional phenomenon. It is possible to piece together various empirical dimensions to analyze the diversity of competition and cooperation, but to understand the full scope of party activities in this light, it is necessary to consider how the positioning of parties relates to and potentially involves other categories of private organizations with which friendly or hostile relations may be established. When we move beyond interest groups and political parties and zoom in on other private organizations, there is a small and highly fragmented but expanding literature on organizations that picks up the themes discussed here. This includes a vast array of actors whose relations are mainly characterized by competition. Obviously, there is competition between different think tanks that are funded by different donors, and they are based on different ideologies and seek to set different agendas. They specialize in a range of the same or perhaps different issues (Weaver and McGann 2000; Weidenbaum 2011). The same applies to actors such as professional service firms, including public affairs and consulting businesses, but unlike a number of other private actors in politics, they are also present in traditional markets, where it is often easier to recognize that firms come into competition (von Nordenflycht 2010). To some extent, it is possible to draw on contributions on competition as these are developed with regard to interest groups, but a special literature to analyze competition among these many other actors in politics is still missing, and especially studies that address competition and cooperation, not just within but also between different categories of private organizations, are wanted. Although competition and cooperation are encompassing, we do not have an integrated standard vocabulary for categorizing these multiple variations in the interactions of private organizations. With regard to both competition and cooperation, however, we can differentiate between direct and indirect interactions and between intraspecific and interspecific interactions. It is useful to define these different categories, building on key ideas from evolutionary biology, mainly from studies on competition but also from various kinds of mutualisms, where another vocabulary exists. It is, however, an advantage to bring these different languages together. As shown in Table 6.1, the dichotomies of direct vs. indirect and intraspecific vs. interspecific offer interesting opportunities for capturing different competitive and cooperative interactions among private organizations. These are related in the way that many intraspecific interactions will be direct, while many

Competition—researching multiple interactions 113 Table 6.1 Competition—and cooperation: interactions and political species Interactions

Intraspecific

Direct

Competition

Interspecific Competition Cooperation Cooperation Cooperation Cooperation

Indirect Competition

Competition

interspecific relations will take an indirect form, but these patterns vary across political species. Competition is an important experience in politics and has been treated in the existing scholarship. The translation of the competition concept from the biological context must therefore take account of these diverse experiences and traditions. However, the paradigm of competition is not sufficient to capture all interactions of private organizations, and a number of cooperative elements have also been discussed. First, it is useful to distinguish between some key modes of interactions, which can be characterized as either direct or indirect depending on how the species concerned, in our case, private organizations, relate to each other in political life. In some cases, these different actors actually come into contact and compete for or share some of the same resources, but in other cases, they never meet, but nevertheless, their behavior will affect each other in indirect and often imperceptible ways that are much harder to record but are nevertheless significant to their performance. This encourages us to identify and recognize different kinds of competitive and cooperative interactions. Second, we may, on the one hand, differentiate among forms of interaction when organizations, representing more or less the same concerns and values and thus belonging to the same political species (intraspecific relations), confront each other or find mutually beneficial ways of cooperating; and on the other hand, we may differentiate among interactions where organizations with different roots (interspecific relations) engage in different kinds of conflict or find suitable forms of cooperation. It is important to remember that neither competition nor cooperation within or among different species will necessarily have the same consequences for the actors involved, and various asymmetries must always be considered. Such insights can guide the study of individual cases. Applications Competition is a major principle in evolutionary theory, but competition and cooperation are expressed in a variety of ways, and in this section, we use a few

114 Competition—researching multiple interactions illustrations to study these multiple forms of interaction. It is evident that we cannot get around the full complexity of competitive and cooperative interactions, but the application of concepts unravels some essential features that are not captured in the existing research on private organizations. First, we show that trade unions, which all share a basic ambition to represent the interests of employees, have different ideological backgrounds and that this is an important divisive feature that triggers competition. Second, organizations that represent employees also have another common line of conflict, namely with employer organizations that represent very different concerns on the labor market, and, accordingly, these actors compete in a variety of ways. Third, some human rights organizations may compete with each other for attention in refugee policy, but they also compete with other organizations such as political parties with a negative attitude toward immigration. Fourth, a number of private organizations have established a very close cooperation with other actors in their environment, and as an example, we show that organizations involved in security and foreign policy interact with certain political parties in mutually beneficial ways. Direct and indirect competition: associations, parties, and human rights groups

Organisms, either from the same species or from different species, meet each other in the struggle for resources, and it is generally easy to identify and acknowledge such direct interactions. Sometimes, however, such confrontations do not occur, but still, such indirect relations can be competitive. Therefore, we should be attentive to the possibility that such relations, which are often difficult to observe, nevertheless may have a negative bearing on the acquisition of resources for some of the organisms involved. This implies, for instance, that we are able to examine relations staggered in time and space. Such a strategy is in line with the holistic perspective in the study of ecology, where the analysis is not restricted to a few actors and short time frames. Indeed, the concepts of direct and indirect competition encourage us to search for broader patterns in time and space, but it can be difficult to evaluate the competitive, or for that matter, the cooperative, aspect of very distant relations. In some areas of human rights policy, there is strong disagreement in many countries among political parties when it comes to immigration (Dennison and Geddes 2019). Political parties play a key role in the formulation and implementation of legislation, and to varying degrees, they bear responsibility for public policy, especially when in office. In general, there is a division between political parties to the left and to the right, but there are many nuances, and things change over time. A part of the picture is further that new political parties have emerged to address these concerns in particular. Both smaller (e.g., Belgium, Denmark, Greece, and Sweden) and major (e.g., France, Germany, Italy, and Spain) European countries have witnessed this phenomenon, but many established parties

Competition—researching multiple interactions 115 have reformulated their policies. Parties in classical immigration countries, such as the United States and Australia, consider how to balance strict laws with the demand for labor (SBS 2022), and various priorities must be defined. It is clear that parties may disagree about overall principles and specific issues in legislation, and it is appropriate to refer to direct competition. In such cases, direct competition has an intraspecific character—but it is relevant to discuss possible interspecific elements because parties also come from different corners of society. As political species, however, parties are not alone on the scene, and certain associations and movements rooted in civil society are seriously engaged in immigration and refugee policy. In many cases, there is a conflict among different political species, which all try to set important agendas and influence policy, and these interactions therefore add an interspecific component to direct competition. Thus, human rights organizations at the international level, such as Amnesty International, and at the national level, such as the Refugee Council of Australia, highlight a number of values and rights in these domains (RCOA 2023). These ideals and standards can be related to concrete issues and situations, but they can also be so general that there is indirect competition with certain political parties. The concept of indirect competition definitely needs clarification, but we can observe how particularly anti-immigration parties compete in less evident but still significant ways with private organizations representing a pro-immigration stance. Interestingly, and this underscores the indirect character of competition, these organizations do not necessarily formulate their policies with regard to immigration more narrowly but in broader and seemingly more distant terms, which, however, spill over into this policy field. Business associations operate in a very different policy space and rarely engage in immigration policy per se but address their concerns in labor-market terms. In general, these organizations are interested in increasing the supply of labor and, not least, skilled labor, especially in times of prosperity. At the international level, for example, Business at OECD is an advocate of migration under specific conditions, and at the national level, employers such as the Australian Federation of Employers and Industries (AFEI) (Wright 2017) tend to act in similar ways. Accordingly, many associations in business tend to develop pro-immigration positions and strategies, and, depending on the country and context, these initiatives may come into conflict with political parties with a critical attitude toward immigration. Immigration policy is a very complex field with several private organizations involved, and together they offer many interesting examples of indirect competition. Intraspecific competition: unions with different belief and value systems

In nature, organisms belonging to the same species share essential features, although there are always some slight variations in their genetic make-up and

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in their morphology, physiology, and behavior. This similarity in profiles will likely lead organisms into competition for the same resources. Among political species, it is not in any way possible to identify the same kind of profile similarity as in nature, but there are interesting parallels. Indeed, we may still detect and observe private organizations that share a sufficiently large number of basic characters to be classified as belonging to the same political species, and according to evolutionary theory, such similarities will tend to bring them into intraspecific competition. When private organizations recruit and appeal to the same constituency and interact with the same environment, they will draw on more or less the same kind of resources, and, as a consequence, they are likely to contend with each other. In the case that such organizations share fewer characters and can rather be classified as different subspecies, and if they eventually evolve into new political species, competition will gradually become interspecific. We find such a complex situation among certain trade unions. In many countries, there is a strong tradition of collective action among workers, although this is being challenged by globalization (Gumbrell-McCormick and Hyman 2020), and different unions compete to organize and represent almost the same group. Fees are an important resource, and together with other sources of income, they fund the unions, so organizations obviously compete to attract members. They further compete for recognition in their environment, striving to become the genuine representatives of their constituencies in a given industry, region, or country, and other unions, employers, and governments play an important role in granting recognition. Although unions, even within the very same field, apparently share some basic features, they are in some cases based on different roots. A specific cleavage is between unions with secular and religious origins (Hyman 2001). Some unions are anchored in a specific religion, such as Catholicism, and this guides their understanding of conflict and cooperation in society, while others emphasize the joint interests of their members irrespective of religious faith. Another traditional division is between unions with different ideological roots, such as socialists and communists, and this influences their goals and strategies and has implications for competition. Indeed, various religious and ideological overtones can make competition fierce. Interestingly, the severity of the competition seems to be driven by the fact that unions share many features but are not identical. Trade unions grounded in different belief and value systems are only found in some countries. In countries such as France, Italy, and Spain, we meet divisions along different lines, both religious and ideological (Wets 2000). To varying degrees, this is also the case in different countries in Latin America (Bensusán 2019), some of which are members of the OECD. The organizational landscape is complex, but if we take a look at the situation in France, the following picture emerges: At the peak level, organizing interests across different industries, we find the General Confederation of Labor (Confédération Générale du Travail,

Competition—researching multiple interactions 117 CGT), which traditionally has had a communist background, but the French Democratic Confederation of Labour (Confédération française démocratique du travail, CFDT) has had a socialist inclination, indicating different ideological and political orientations. The French Confederation of Christian Workers (Confédération française des travailleurs chrétiens; CFTC) is self-evidently based on a Christian conviction, while the General Confederation of Labor—Workers’ Force (Confédération Générale du Travail—Force Ouvrière (FO)) is an organization with a former communist orientation, and the Solidaires or Solidaires Unitaires Démocratiques (SUD) is characterized by a syndicalist and radical bent, showing yet other kinds of political leaning (CGT 2023; CFDT 2023; CFTC 2023; FO 2023; SUD 2023). As part of their various profiles, these unions have built alliances with and supported some of the political parties, either in opposition or in government. These different unions, all located at the peak level, therefore come into intraspecific competition on a variety of issues. However, these competitive relations are a highly differentiated phenomenon, as competition is not equally intense between all of them and in all situations, enabling cooperation in some cases. Arguably, unions can be interpreted as a kind of subspecies, or perhaps even different species, and different tools from the biological tradition can facilitate further analyses. Interspecific competition: unions and employer organizations

Private organizations are diverse and seek different resources. In many cases, they do not interact at all; they are not aware of each other’s existence, and there is a modest chance that they will ever meet and perceive each other as competitors. Yet, some private organizations of very different origins come into competition around the same resources, or at least fractions of the same resources, in specific issue areas or in specific situations. In such cases, the concept of interspecific competition is applicable. In nature, competition between individual organisms belonging to different species is seen as less pronounced than competition within the same species, and the antagonisms among organizations belonging to various different political species are also of a different kind. It is, however, difficult to conclude that competition is necessarily weaker, but it has a number of features that need clarification, and we therefore turn to relations between trade unions and employer organizations. In addition to exchanges with other trade unions, organized labor has in many countries strong relations with employers and their organizations (Ebbinghaus 2010). Unions and employer organizations are rooted in and represent different groups in the labor market, and they tend to be engaged in more or less the same policy fields—but of course from different standpoints and with different goals. In history, this has led to many hard struggles in the labor market, but in many

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instances, relations have been institutionalized, and important forms of cooperation, including elements of symbiosis, deserve attention. In some cases, associations may compete with different kinds of private organizations, such as foundations or think tanks, and we can obviously refer to interspecific competition. In the case of trade unions and employer organizations, both interests are organized through associations, yet it is appropriate to characterize interactions as interspecific because these associations have very different origins and cater to distinctly different concerns. We saw that unions may have different political and religious orientations, at least in some countries, but this is rarely the case with employers, who seem less divided along such lines. As a rule, employer organizations coordinate the joint interests of employers and seek to establish a single voice for employers. This is a picture we see in practically all OECD countries, but there is a huge variation across countries (BIAC 2022). In Germany, Mexico, and Turkey, there is an independent employer organization, while in countries such as New Zealand, Hungary, and Spain, employer and producer concerns are combined in some associations, indicating that interactions with relevant trade unions are organized differently. Some organizations specializing in employer affairs devote almost their entire energy to labor market issues and industrial relations. In other organizations, employer interests must be balanced with producer interests because employers are represented by encompassing business associations with broader obligations, and, hence, relations with unions cannot demand the full attention of these organizations. This suggests that interspecific competition between organized labor and employers is a general phenomenon but managed differently. Factors in the institutional environment will also have an impact on interspecific competition. Public policy with regard to the labor market can be everything from very modest to highly ambitious, and government and the political parties represented in government may build relations with one of the two groups and privilege interests accordingly, but government may also give precedence to compromising and integrating unions as well as employer organizations into public policymaking. Historically, it has been of key importance whether unions and employers have liaised with social-democratic or conservative-liberal parties in parliament and in government and whether major political parties have been inclined to recognize both groups of organizations in the labor market and not just side with one of them. In places such as the small Scandinavian countries, there has been a comparatively strong emphasis on the consultation with and integration of both unions and employer organizations, while this has not been the case in countries such as the United Kingdom and France, but for different reasons, namely often strained relations between the Conservative Party (UK) and trade unions (Taylor 2021) and fluctuating traditions of étatisme, respectively (Culpepper 2006). Indeed, the analysis of such additional factors is important for understanding the concrete manifestations of interspecific competition, which, like intraspecific

Competition—researching multiple interactions 119 competition, cannot be properly understood in terms of pairwise interactions alone. This is an important lesson in biology and is useful in the analysis of private organizations. Cooperation: foreign policy, associations, parties, and government

As with competition, there is a broad range of forms through which species cooperate, some within the same species and others among different species. As one of the many concepts to denote cooperation in evolutionary biology, the concept of mutualism is applied to organisms belonging to different species and the benefits they enjoy from interactions, but in this context, we have unified the language and refer to cooperation within as well as among species, recognizing their qualitatively different characters. We may assume that although the different political species involved draw important advantages, there will be variations. In broad terms, cooperation provides a number of benefits, but these have to be specified because they cover different kinds of resources, and they are not extracted in the same quantity and at the same time of the interaction process. Relatedly, a distinction is made in the scholarly literature between symbiotic and non-symbiotic interactions. Only through concrete investigations, however, is it possible to determine whether interactions between specific private organizations are stable and essential to the survival of the organizations (symbiotic) or whether they are important but rather have an occasional character and are not crucial to their existence (non-symbiotic). Thus, the application of the concept of symbiosis runs into some conceptual and empirical problems, but it would be strange had certain kinds of private organizations not developed close ties with each other—and with various political institutions. It is difficult to say which categories of private organizations are most likely to become involved in mutually beneficial exchanges, and research has not been equally occupied with the diversity of political species and their interactions. As with the other examples, we can only offer a brief discussion. Foreign policy, and especially the core areas of this policy field, tends to be seen as largely dominated by states, while private organizations are relegated to specific areas, such as development or trade policy, where private actors are presumably stronger (David and Eichenberger 2020). This is not the whole story, however, because a number of private organizations are actually concerned with the key principles in foreign policy. While some organizations are critical of official foreign policy, a number of organizations support the established foreign policy of a given country. In general foreign policy, we find organizations such as the Royal Institute of International Affairs in the United Kingdom (also referred to as Chatham House), the Council of Foreign Relations (CFR) in the United States, the Canadian Institute of International Affairs (CIIA), and the Australian Institute of

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International Affairs (AIIA), all dating back to the 1920s. In many other countries, we can identify bodies patterned after these models but adapted to local conditions (Roberts 2015). In areas of foreign policy with a focus on security policy, we also find a host of different private organizations. In NATO member states, private organizations concerned with NATO affairs are brought together under the umbrella of the Atlantic Treaty Association (ATA) (2023), a private body at the international level. The tasks of these various organizations, going back to the early 1950s, vary. Some put emphasis on their status as associations and as club-like meeting places for members, while others stress their role as think tanks with professional research obligations, and their exact character as political species must be decided from case to case. There is a tradition of close cooperation with governments and foreign ministries that has often played a leading role in the creation of private bodies working in the core areas of foreign policy, and to various extents, they provide funding and add to the resources delivered by private foundations. However, contacts extend further with other private organizations, such as political parties, and especially with those that stand behind and share responsibility for foreign policy. Usually, the organizations offer a platform for the exchange of experiences between experts and government officials, but they are not always a forum for foreign policy elites and have in some contexts a broader outreach. Such relations are of mutual interest to private organizations, governments, and relevant political parties, and relations can generally be defined as highly cooperative. An additional question is whether relations involving these different organizations are symbiotic or non-symbiotic, but to answer this question, interactions must be closely evaluated, and both pairwise and more encompassing relations demand scrutiny. Conclusion Competition is pervasive in nature but not reducible to a single mode of interaction and is instead expressed in a variety of ways that are complex to unravel. In evolutionary biology, there is an interesting debate about competition, and, fortunately, a number of distinct concepts of competition are available and may help us capture differentiated forms of competition in the political realm. The same applies to the related concept of cooperation, which is equally diverse. Indeed, these inspirations move us beyond stale concepts of competition and cooperation that in the best of cases recognize various degrees of competition and cooperation but fail to appreciate different modes of such exchanges. However, it is a demanding task to specify all the possible interactions and map how they harm or benefit private organizations, and we have just discussed

Competition—researching multiple interactions 121 a few major forms of interaction. These processes are themselves fascinating to study, but they have wider implications. Competition and cooperation are important and influence the selection of private organizations, and over time, these factors contribute to speciation and potentially to the evolution of new political species, issues that we have also discussed in other chapters. First, competition can be analyzed as both direct and indirect. From a conventional perspective, competition is no doubt easier to recognize when organizations interact in a confrontational style and are active in the same policy fields, issues, or situations. However, there are also many instances of indirect competition. In such cases, the various activities of species have repercussions on other species because they influence their access to resources. In this case, we examined how political parties with anti-immigration profiles engage in direct competition with each other and in indirect competition with human rights organizations and business associations that express pro-immigration views in the same or related policy fields. Assisted by ideas in evolutionary biology, we are able to understand some basic principles, and second, a key distinction can be made between intraspecific and interspecific competition. The struggle tends to be more severe between specific organizations that have the same background and the same goals. However, organizations characterized by significant competition do not have to be fully identical in all dimensions for intraspecific competition to unfold. As we saw in the case of trade unions in France, they struggle for some of the same resources, but they differ in terms of their confessions and ideologies, and we may consider whether it is relevant to classify these different organizations as subspecies of trade unions. Third, competition is further active in relation to very different categories of species, and private organizations only in part pursue the same resources in interspecific competition. We may characterize competitive relations as interspecific both when they cover different kinds of private organizations, such as clubs and professional societies, and also when they are manifest among associations with different roots. As an example, we discussed competition between trade unions and employer organizations. They represent different and conflicting interests in the labor market, and with such divergent origins, they can be classified as different species, although both are organized in an associational format. Fourth, cooperation is an important element in nature but has often drawn less attention. Cooperation is a complex phenomenon, and it takes a diversity of forms in politics, but a specific understanding of cooperation is needed with regard to private organizations. In this context, we may analyze both pairwise and more encompassing cooperation. As an example, we discussed how private foreign-policy organizations engage in mutually beneficial and perhaps even symbiotic relations with relevant political parties and other private and public bodies. This case shows that symbiosis, as one of the biological concepts

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with which to study cooperation, can be transferred to the analysis of private organizations. Notes 1. At the time of Darwin, the reference to “genera” and “species” in taxonomic ranking could be slightly different from modern usage, but the meaning is still crystal clear. 2. It can be argued that there is an undersupply of concepts to describe cooperation within species because cooperation involving individuals from similar organisms is also complex. 3. In addition to mutualism, a further vocabulary is available for describing interspecific interactions (e.g., commensalism, parasitism, and amensalim) and the different benefits and costs associated with these categories of relations (Haskell 1949). Originally, this contribution came from outside of biology and was aimed at social interactions in a broad sense, but a number of ideas were picked up by biologists. These principles have since been criticized, amended, and reformulated, bringing in experiences not available in human society (Lidicker 1979; Bronstein 2015). 4. Competition tends to be seen as pronounced in the case of social movements. These tend to be ephemeral and loosely organized, and some aspects of competition among different movements have been analyzed, often with a focus on the membership dimension (Zald and McCarthy 1980; Stern 1999; Soule and King 2008). We miss, however, elaborated categories of competition.

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Adaptation—examining vital adjustments

Species, and more specifically individual organisms and various populations, must adjust to changing conditions in their environment, and, hence, adaptation is unavoidably addressed in studies on evolutionary biology. In fact, it is such a critical and nuanced experience that it underlies the general evolution of species, but the concept of adaptation is not always explicated in each and every case. We have already dealt with certain facets of adaptation in the previous chapters, but the concept deserves specific attention. However, even an individual chapter assigned to this problem cannot embrace all relevant dimensions of adaptation because it is a highly complex issue. Nevertheless, it is possible to dig a bit deeper and show how advances can be made when applying this and related concepts to the study of private organizations in politics. In nature, adaptation can be observed in minute detail and affects the morphology, physiology, and behavior of species. A key problem of adaptation is therefore to enhance the overall fitness of species. Ultimately, and based on their ability to adapt, some organisms will survive, and some will succumb, and furthermore new and better-adapted species will emerge through speciation. Adaptation is also a perennial problem for private organizations. They face different environments, of course, and adapt both in relation to changing conditions in the economy, in politics, and in relation to other actors, and they are confronted with varying selection pressures. Depending on their fitness, their position will change as individual organizations, but it is also possible to study whether entire political species appear on or disappear from the scene of politics over evolutionary time. Many initiatives in private organizations embrace multiple dimensions of adaptation involving their internal structures and their external political behavior. Organizations with stronger abilities to harness resources, build knowledge bases, and develop secretariats tend to have certain advantages. Organizations that adapt to better organize and represent their constituencies, including keeping and recruiting members, may have better chances to sustain their role in politics. And organizations that effectively adapt to and exploit the institutional conditions in their environment also seem to enjoy important benefits. It is possible DOI: 10.4324/9781003212546-7

124 Adaptation—examining vital adjustments to zoom in on each of these dimensions or to examine the combined efforts of organizations, and to get a better grasp of these processes, it is important to seek guidance on the concept of adaptation. This chapter first interrogates the biological perspectives on adaptation, which entails a rich and established tradition. Adaptation is a word used colloquially, but we show that there is a scientific vernacular in evolutionary biology that gives this concept a more precise definition. Yet, it is a complex concept, and we will bring in some further and related concepts to specify the varieties of adaptation. In the second step, we evaluate how it can be translated to address the role of private organizations. Reference is randomly made to adaptation in the political and social sciences, but we also find some traditions for using adaptation as a concept in the specific literature on private actors. However, fresh ideas from biology can in many ways advance research. As a third point, we provide some illustrations of how different categories of private organizations are exposed to different selection pressures and seek to adapt to changing circumstances. The chapter finishes with a conclusion that shows what can be gained from the biological tradition and what complicates the transfer of concepts from one field to another. Biological perspectives Adaptation is such a basic concept in evolutionary biology that it tends to be interwoven into other important concepts and almost risks being forgotten. Therefore, we need a differentiated understanding of this concept and should not just accept the trivial fact that species generally seem to adapt but rather specify it in ways that facilitate translation. Hence, a few key principles need clarification. We show that adaptation is an inherent element in evolution but also that it has its own specific vocabulary, which is useful to mobilize and apply to the study of private organizations. Recall that the adaptation concept is connected to the other concepts discussed in this book. Indeed, a major factor in evolution is the ability of organisms to respond to biotic and abiotic conditions within a particular ecological space but also to find ways of adaptation to mold the environment. Some of these adaptations are successful and enhance the chances of survival, but not all in the same way, and eventually, organisms, populations, or species may survive but with different capacities, and this may lead to the formation of new species. To keep adaptation a genuine scientific concept, it is crucial not to oversimplify it. Species react to a host of different pressures in their environment, and, thus, we may identify the major variables in order to analyze each of these mechanisms. However, adaptation is not merely a matter of spontaneous reactions to observable external stimuli, and that can be mapped accordingly because many challenges are hardly perceptible and work in indirect ways, as described in the last chapter.

Adaptation—examining vital adjustments 125 Adaptation is a pervasive force and relates to the morphology, physiology, and behavior of species, features that only evolve over protracted periods of time. In fact, “organisms are doomed to extinction unless they change continuously in order to keep step with the constantly changing physical and biotic environment. Such changes are ubiquitous, since climates change, competitors invade the area, predators become extinct, food sources fluctuate; indeed, hardly any component of the environment remains constant” (Mayr 1982: 483–484). Species become adapted to their environment, allowing for gradual changes, but species do not respond in the same way, with the same rigor, and at the same time. There are also interesting cases of non-adaptation. Individual organisms, populations, or even species resist changes with the consequence that they disappear from an area or even become extinct, but there is also the possibility that species endure without adaptation (Ghiselin 1966). We must remember these complexities in nature when transferring the concept to the study of political species, to which we will return in the next section. Indeed, some political species survive because they rebel against existing rules and norms in politics and define their own alternative niches. In fact, adaptation is never straightforward. Great care is needed in the assessment of adaptation. Its role in evolution can be exaggerated when changes in traits are uncritically ascribed to adaptation (Gould and Lewontin 1979). Thus, many changes are related to the genetic drift and molecular properties of species, and therefore mutations must also be factored in (Harris 2010). Indeed, we meet different perspectives on adaptation, reminiscing about the fragility and ambiguity of concepts. Although some of these experiences and debates on adaptation can be difficult to translate to the study of private organizations, it is at least important to remember that adaptation has many sources and is expressed in different ways. To provide further nuances to the concept of adaptation, we can draw attention to different time sequences and examine the processes before adaptation is accomplished. When species become exposed to various challenges in their environment, they are already more or less equipped to meet these, react in ways that prove beneficial, and ultimately secure their existence. This capability is traditionally referred to as preadaptation but is also denoted by the concept of exaptation (Gould 2002: 1232–1233), meaning that traits originally developed for one function come to serve another function. Some traits are, of course, more suited to a shift in function over evolutionary time and in ways that make the relevant traits and species preadapted. It is, however, not the foresight of species that makes them preadapted, as such a kind of agency cannot be ascribed to them, but instead the previous patterns of evolution that make successful adaptation to new conditions more likely. However, this kind of “luck” should not be exaggerated because the relevant old traits are not necessarily perfect for new purposes, and time is needed for adjustments to become successful.

126 Adaptation—examining vital adjustments As far as the time dimension is concerned, adaptation is both manifested in the observable behavior of species and in the later results of their behavior. Therefore, adaptation is not merely expressed through immediate and distinct responses to some identifiable challenges but takes effect on a continuous basis, where it can be difficult to isolate the multiple factors in adaptation. In the evolution of species, specific traits are selected, such as when animals with excellent night vision become adapted to a nocturnal environment (Martin 2017), a longterm process in which not only genetic but also morphological and physiological factors are involved. In principle, adaptation is only possible to study through an interactive approach, and interactions are characterized by various asymmetries, having different consequences for species. Accordingly, a number of related concepts have been developed to capture and specify such interactions. Thus, in evolutionary biology, the concept of co-adaptation recognizes that a smaller or larger group of species interact (Kawano, Connell, and Hidaka 1988; Thompson 1994) and that they co-evolve by undergoing smaller or larger changes over an extended time perspective as a result of these processes. In other words, a given species influences its environment, which influences the species in an uninterrupted chain of adaptations, making it challenging, if at all possible, to establish logical starting or ending points. In a similar vein, the concept of co-evolution (Thompson 1994), also addressed in previous chapters, puts particular emphasis on the evolution of species over time and on how species co-evolve with other species and other parts of their environment. Depending on the concrete research project, different forms of adaptation can be highlighted and include adaptation in relation to pairwise interactions, which is much easier to study, and multiple relations and diffuse forms of adaptation (Terhorst, Zee, Heath et al. 2018). Some of these problems were discussed in relation to competition and cooperation, but it is important to emphasize that we may formulate slightly different questions depending on the conceptual focus. Hence, we also get different answers when we highlight adaptation as a concept—and these experiences in biology may inspire the analysis of private organizations as political species. Certain modes of adaptation are, however, only practiced by some species. A number of species display unique forms of adaptation when they resemble other species in their general structure or behavior or in particular situations. This is a comprehensive theme, but we will sketch a few basic aspects of this phenomenon in nature, which is referred to as mimicry. Since being observed and scientifically described in the middle of the nineteenth century (Bates 1862), mimicry is today recognized as a highly complex experience embracing a diversity of species. Many different kinds of mimicry are found in nature (Kleisner 2008), reflected in different scholarly debates and leading to different conceptual advances. As shown in Figure 7.1, what looks like a piece of twig or bark in the middle of the picture is actually a moth, and many such cases can be found in nature.

Adaptation—examining vital adjustments 127

Figure 7.1 Mimicry: the case of Pachythelia Villosella Source: Morten Top-Jensen

It is important to note that species neither “deliberate” nor “decide” who and what to mimic, but those organisms within a population that most effectively acquire the relevant traits will over long time horizons gain a comparative advantage and to a greater extent be selected for. In an evolutionary perspective, they will prevail, while the number of organisms with no or only limited capacities will decline and perish, and specific forms of mimicry will therefore come to characterize the particular species. However, this in no way suggests that such species eventually turn into those species that they in one way or another imitate. Mimicry is superficial but crucial. Essentially, mimicry offers a number of strategic advantages, such as reducing the risk of predation and, vice versa, enabling easier access to prey, and a given species can increase its defensive or offensive potential by mimicking other species. Because mimicry has many consequences, it must be specified for all the involved species, and we can distinguish between three different roles in such interactions: species that imitate other species (“the mimics”), species that are mimicked (“the models”), and species that are deceived (“the dupes”) (Pasteur 1982). It is important to avoid confusion with other phenomena and concepts, and the relatedness of species is a key factor. New species emerge as a result of ongoing speciation, a concept we have dealt with already, but they only differ

128 Adaptation—examining vital adjustments slightly from the species they depart from. Obviously, such closely related species display many similarities, and there is usually no significant advantage associated with mimicking strongly related species simply because the chances of deception are smaller, and, consequently, mimicry does not concern such patterns. Rather, mimicry is manifest in cases where taxonomically very different species are imitated, making this form of adaptation effect even more surprising, as we just saw in the figure. Furthermore, mimicry must not be obscured by another concept in evolutionary biology, namely convergent evolution (McGhee 2011; Bels and Russell 2023), which, of course, only some species undergo. In cases of convergent evolution, different and taxonomically unrelated species develop similar traits as responses to the same kinds of pressures from the environment, while mimicry first and foremost is associated with deceiving other species in one way or another, a benefit that is not apparent in convergent evolution. Both concepts may be useful in the study of private organizations in politics but can be applied in different contexts to examine the patterns of adaptation. That species find different ways of adaptation is also manifested in a further number of cases where they try to avoid detection—although not by imitating other species as in mimicry (Endler 1981). In biology, this behavioral phenomenon has usually been denoted as “crypsis” (Allaby 2014), but in different branches of the discipline, reference is also made to cryptic animals and plants or to secretive species, and sometimes the concept of cryptic species is also used in the field of ecology. Today, reference to cryptic species seems also related to the problem of distinguishing species from one another in cases where categorization is unsettled (Monro and Mayo 2022), and, unfortunately, this leads to much confusion in terminology (Heethoff 2018; Korshunova, Picton, Furfaro et al. 2019). What primarily interests us here, however, is the essence of crypsis. Species use various forms of camouflage or nocturnality to conceal their activities, but some species are only on some occasions and in some seasons secretive, for instance, in the breeding season. Hence, crypsis displays a rich diversity of structural and behavioral forms to increase the chances of survival. In many cases, species seek to adapt to their environment and escape detection on a more permanent basis, however. Because it is such an important trait governing their overall behavior, they fall into the general category of cryptic species, or whichever concept is preferred for this particular group of animals or plants. Unfortunately, this kind of secretive behavior often makes it complicated to establish reliable data on the population of species, an important element in conservation work, and hence there is much variation in our knowledge. Therefore, lack of insight cannot be explained purely as a matter of accessibility to different geographic regions and habitats of the world; although this factor should be counted in, the problem is also attributable to the crypsis phenomenon itself. This makes the study of such species complicated, but we have a good

Adaptation—examining vital adjustments 129 grasp of many species with cryptic behavior (Pfenninger and Schwenk 2007). Indeed, the history of biology is characterized by the gradual scientific discovery and categorization of an increasing number of species, a process alongside which some species have become extinct, opening many avenues for investigation. Although final answers are not provided on this aspect of adaptation, these insights offer many new ideas for the study of the political realm. In this brief section, we have discussed the concept of adaptation in evolutionary biology and in its various subdisciplines. Obviously, it has only been possible to address a few major concerns, but they add to the insights provided in the foregoing chapters. Although the word “adaptation” is used in different colloquial settings, adaptation has a precise, yet not wholly uncontested, meaning in biology, and thus a number of fresh thoughts can be translated and applied to study private organizations, where adaptation is indispensable to increase their overall fitness. First, adaptation can be understood both as immediate reactions to specific environmental pressures and as long-term adjustments, leading to changes in the morphology, physiology, and behavior of species. This suggests that adaptation is a multidimensional concept and that different aspects can be highlighted. Thus, different time perspectives of adaptation deserve scrutiny, and this is in accordance with the concept of evolution, visited in an earlier chapter, which sees the emergence of new subspecies and full species as a result of multiple adjustments. Because of the long time horizon in the study of species, there is a strong focus on the effect of long-term changes, but evolution also builds on the accumulation of many smaller kinds of adaptation. Second, various related concepts have been developed to pinpoint specific mechanisms of adaptation. Thus, it is important to remember that species co-evolve with the environment, and thus the concept of co-adaptation is applied to capture the interactive element of adaptation. In some cases, species resemble and behave like other species, and imitation and deception enhance the chances of survival (mimicry), but species also hide to escape detection and observation (crypsis). These strategies are not freely available to all species, but such defensive and offensive measures all belong to the basic repertoire of adaptation. Many more aspects of adaptation must be brought into the picture to grasp the full character of adaptation, but these ideas can serve as starting points for the translation of ideas. Reflections and translations “Adaptation” is a vital concept in evolutionary biology but is also addressed in other disciplines. It would be difficult to claim, however, that there is a specific and consistent tradition in the social and political sciences where it tends to be casually applied, and this characterizes many of the studies we address in the following. To get a better grasp of such scholarly practices, we need to cast the net

130 Adaptation—examining vital adjustments wide and search for experiences in multiple areas, and with search criteria aimed at a broad body of literature,1 we must be aware of various translation problems. A number of approaches concerned with adaptation, although not necessarily carving out this concept per se, examine the responses of political actors to various kinds of environmental pressures. Akin to evolution, manifested at different levels, adaptation also unfolds in different individual and cultural contexts (Bowles and Gintis 2011; McDermott and Hatemi 2018). Accordingly, we may distinguish between adaptation at human, organizational, and societal levels, and, to various extents, there is different literature for each of these scales, a point we discussed at length in the chapter on evolution, where different semantics and concepts exist. However, approaches seemingly applicable to all these levels usually originate at a specific level. Thus, studies relying on theories, such as game theory or exchange theory, tend to emphasize the role of human actors and seek to understand rational behavior in different situations, including how humans manage and benefit from adaptation. These scholarly traditions harbor a strong ambition to formalize the patterns of adaptation. Many advances foregrounding the individual level in economic, social, and political contexts have undoubtedly been made in economics, organization theory, and management science, where there is a keen and independent interest in the adaptation paradigm. In general, there is a strong interest in examining adaptation from a short time perspective, while the long time horizon tends to be deficient or missing. Some important contributions, however, attend to the latter dimension and appreciate how adaptation accumulates experiences, facilitates cooperation (Axelrod 1984), and influences human development. Nevertheless, the historical component is not given the same weight as in some parts of institutional theory, and we do not meet the extended time frame that we find in evolutionary biology. Relatedly, theories on complex adaptive systems highlight adaptation as a concept and as a practice in many different settings. Interestingly, the thinking on complex adaptive systems borrows various ideas from biology, and some scholars with a biological or medical background engage in these endeavors (Kauffman 1993). The basic ideas behind such systemic theories, however, have been borrowed from disciplines such as computer science, communications, and engineering and not evolutionary biology. With such a multidisciplinary background, some of these general theories, although with an origin at the micro level, can be applied in a range of contexts where multiple actors and their relations lend themselves to scrutiny. Certain ideas have also been used to study the adaptation of business associations (Lang, Ronit, and Schneider 2008) as some of the many private organizations engaged in politics. Studies occupied with the evolution of societies, cultures, and institutions are also concerned with adaptation. Particularly historical institutionalism has

Adaptation—examining vital adjustments 131 developed an advanced understanding of how institutions adapt to changing environments, and specific concepts are developed to capture different forms of adaptation (Mahoney and Thelen 2010). The study of adaptive traits, however, does not build on explicit inspiration from evolutionary biology. Interestingly, and consistent with biological approaches, it is recognized that actors do not simply respond to and adapt to challenges but also change over the course of time, leading to the revision of old institutions and the emergence of new institutions (Patzelt 2007), and in the case of labor markets, this has consequences for unions and employer organizations. These historical perspectives are all valuable in the context of adaptation, but only in part applied to private organizations, the focus of our analysis. There are, however, studies that grapple with adaptation in private organizations. Interest groups and political parties are examples of organizations that respond to challenges from members, from other organizations, and from their economic, social, and political environment. Thus, associations both adapt to fluctuating demands and expectations in their constituencies and react to the exigencies of governments, a useful distinction to examine dual and simultaneous forms of adaptation (Schmitter and Streeck 1999). Political parties need to adapt to the behavior of the other parties with which they compete or cooperate, and they must also respond to shifting voter preferences and to various political agendas. These issues are dealt with in the pertinent scholarly literature on different private organizations, but they are not profoundly assisted by the concept of adaptation. In some cases, however, we find stronger reference to adaptation as a concept. Associations are today exposed to different technological challenges and must adapt to maintain their positions in politics (Mas and Gómez 2021). They also need to adapt to pressures from Europeanization and globalization, a process in which they seek to keep national traditions and yet fit into an international framework (Grote, Lang, and Schneider 2008), an issue we discussed in relation to the concept of biogeography. A question, however, is whether these kinds of adaptation qualify as short-term, instantaneous responses to pressures or as longterm adaptation, expressed through slow and gradual adjustments. No doubt, a better understanding of adaptation can be reached with inspiration from evolutionary biology. Beyond the general concept of adaptation, independently developed in the social and political sciences rather than nourished by biological ideas, we unearth a number of further concepts on adaptive behavior. One of the concepts available to identify organizational adaptation is “mimicry,” a concept originating in evolutionary biology. Labeled “isomorphic mimicry” or “mimetic isomorphism,” it has been carried over into the sociology of organizations to analyze how different actors imitate other actors (DiMaggio and Powell 1983). Such mimetic strategies are adopted because there is documented proof of the success of other organizations or because some styles or fashions are just followed,2 suggesting

132 Adaptation—examining vital adjustments either that formal decisions are adopted to mimic others or that organizations intuitively follow certain trends. As a consequence, mimicking is postulated to lead to a greater homogeneity of actors or at least of their behavior. With different backgrounds, however, private organizations are not in a position to freely imitate other organizations. One of the obstacles is that there are various costs associated with this kind of adaptation. Organizations may, for instance, become less competent in representing interests if they try to mimic other actors, and they risk losing authenticity. The issue of convergence and divergence is also contested (Beckert 2010). Organizations that are differently anchored in the market and civil society and which belong to different political systems and cultures meet a number of similar challenges and therefore, unknowingly, converge in some dimensions over time, a point we addressed as convergent evolution. Relatedly, it is worth remembering that, in nature, both mimicry and convergence evolve over extended periods of time, and they are not tools that can be randomly chosen. Indeed, the time factor needs more consideration in the study of private organizations, and as always, we must be careful with the translation of this concept. Interestingly, the idea of isomorphic mimicry has experienced considerable success. Indeed, it has traveled across disciplines and been applied to a diversity of actors, from private firms to states. Although the concept in biology builds on a strong tradition, contributions in organization theory have, after all, not paid much attention to this particular legacy. Contributions in the social and political sciences, borrowing this concept from organization theory, tend not to consult the original biological approach either. Hence, many potent ideas in the biological mimicry literature are neglected. There is a great prospect for advancing theories that address the different positions occupied by private organizations, and we may trace the complex roles typically associated with mimicry, namely the mimic, the model, and the dupe. Furthermore, there is a strong potential for developing specific categories of mimicry and recognizing the diversity of adaptation. It would further be useful to begin this theoretical development by classifying various forms of defensive and offensive mimicry as private organizations adapt to pressures from the environment in many ways. Indeed, much work remains. There are other aspects of adaptation that merit attention and lend themselves to translation. One of the many conspicuous concepts in evolutionary biology is crypsis, which refers to the capability of species to avoid detection and observation through various kinds of secretive behavior. Unlike mimicry, this concept has not been subject to reflection in the study of private organizations, but there is fertile ground for such a transfer. While the concept of crypsis is not translated and applied, the phenomenon is somehow related to or buried in other concepts, of which a few should be

Adaptation—examining vital adjustments 133 briefly mentioned. In general, it can be useful to have a joint concept to organize research, classify empirical findings, and define a precise theoretical concept, and in this case, it would be an advantage to accommodate different experiences under a single concept, such as crypsis. “Structural power,” a concept occasionally referred to in political science (Fuchs 2007), suggests that there are important underlying factors in society that tend to privilege certain groups and for which reason otherwise pertinent elites do not have to take independent action to influence politics. The structural power perspective maintains that certain interests and values are selected for while others are ignored or subdued. However, it is a question of how these interests and values are established and become so dominant in the first place without the determined effort of powerful actors, and also how they can be sustained. It is likely that some actors and some actions are hard to observe and unveil, and this may drive us in the direction of the secretive behavior of private organizations. The classical concept of “non-decision-making” also alludes to this theme (Bachrach and Baratz 1963), as does the related concept of “quiet politics” (Culpepper 2011). Accordingly, some issues never become subject to any genuine decisions in politics because powerful interests, by virtue of their general dominance, prevent some issues from reaching the political agenda. This suggests that the environment, shaped by some actors and not by others, is hugely important. It would therefore be fruitful to further develop the idea that some political species thrive and survive due to their capacity to remain hidden, or at least to conceal some of their activities.3 In such contexts, it seems worthwhile to translate and apply the concept of crypsis to a number of cases, one of the tasks in the following section. As with many other concepts, adaptation is found in colloquial language, but in evolutionary biology, it has precise meanings, and these experiences are valuable to consult, transfer, and apply to the study of private organizations. Political species also need to adapt to changing environments; this is essential to their ultimate survival. However, the phenomenon of adaptation is diverse and so are the theories needed to analyze adaptation, but it is possible to extract a few major ideas to guide the study of concrete cases. Obviously, not all ideas provided in evolutionary biology have been considered in the social and political sciences’ concepts, and, consequently, a renewed effort is demanded to exploit them. As we see in Figure 7.2, there is a time perspective in adaptation: General adaptation is observable over short and long time intervals, but major changes accumulate and are best studied over evolutionary time. In addition, we also find many specific forms of adaptation, such as mimicry and crypsis, but there are also multiple other manifestations of adaptation. There are different manifestations of adaptation, most of them unspecified here, but mimicry and crypsis are indicated as examples of adaptation

134 Adaptation—examining vital adjustments

Long Term

Mimicry Adaptation Crypsis

Short Term Figure 7.2 Adaptation: general and specific adaptation forms

that apply to some but not to all species. First, the general concept of adaptation is of overriding importance, but it clearly needs specification. Although acknowledged in the social and political sciences, both their vague and definite meanings have largely followed their own courses without much guidance from the biological tradition. There is always a time dimension associated with adaptation. Thus, we may distinguish between adaptation in the form of immediate reactions of private organizations and in the slow and accumulated changes in the structure and behavior of organizations that are accomplished over considerable time. Both forms of adaptation are interesting to examine and have some consequences for the emergence of species, including the eventual formation of subspecies and new full species, an important element in evolutionary theory. Second, it is possible to identify concrete manifestations of adaptation and draw on related sub-concepts. In this section, we have highlighted two additional concepts that stress the adaptive potential hosted by some but not all private organizations, namely the ability to imitate other species (mimicry) and the ability to remain hidden and conceal various activities (crypsis). These are not given attention within the social and political sciences, but they are highly useful when translated to the role of private organizations that adopt many different strategies. However, we will have to carefully consider how these features are expressed in the practices of the organizations because there is not a strong tradition for translating these concepts to our field of investigation.

Adaptation—examining vital adjustments 135 Applications The adaptation concept occupies a central place in evolution theory, but it has a somewhat elusive character with regard to political species, and we must specify its scientific potential by applying it to concrete cases, each displaying important sides of adaptation. An interesting toolbox is available, and a beginning can be made by recognizing the variable time scales required for adaptation and by examining particular manifestations of adaptation. Adaptations are accomplished in many ways, but one or several organizational features tend to be affected. First, some instances of adaptation reveal that private organizations must respond to immediate challenges in their environment to maintain their position in politics, and this is a form of short-term adaptation. Second, there are also important cases of adaptation where private organizations have time to adapt to their environment and where the results of adaptation are only observable from a long-term perspective. Third, one of the many forms of adaptation, relevant for some private organizations, is accomplished through mimicking other organizations belonging to different groups of political species in some dimensions of their activity. Fourth, an interesting expression of adaptation is found under conditions where species hide or conceal specific aspects of their activity, and in this way, they evade detection and observation and increase their chances of survival. Short-term and instant adaptation: the efforts of refugee organizations

Private organizations are constantly exposed to challenges in their environment from other private actors and public institutions but also from various conditions in the economy and society. They are related in complex ways and are hard to disentangle. Sometimes new demands emerge and prompt reactions are needed, requiring changes in structure or strategy. On closer inspection, such challenges may take a long time to evolve or suddenly erupt, but measures by private organizations are sometimes instantly required; strong decisions must be taken, and resources must be allocated. We may refer to this kind of response as short-term adaptation, where there is often little time to build up knowledge and prepare and implement policies, and such cases can be found across a vast array of issue areas and situations. This categorization of adaptation is related to our previous discussion on the gradualism of evolution. The evolution of species is accomplished through minute changes over considerable time spans, and, likewise, adaptation is manifested through small steps in a long and never-ending process. Accordingly, this kind of spontaneous adaptation is an element of this greater course that embraces the behavior of species and, ultimately, their general evolution. In such cases, specific forms of adaptation are necessary, and we find many examples in the lives of private organizations. As

136 Adaptation—examining vital adjustments part of civil society, there are today a considerable number of refugee and relief organizations specializing in giving assistance under very critical circumstances. They add to the efforts at the governmental and intergovernmental levels, where the UN body, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), is the lead organization. These private organizations have increasingly become globalized with subdivisions across the world, and there are household names, such as the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC 2022), and more recent actors, such as Refugee Support (RS 2023), but we also encounter many initiatives with a local background, hence adaptation is required at different levels. Recently, a variety of private organizations, especially in neighboring European countries, have responded to the war in Ukraine and its many and unforeseen consequences, seeking to provide temporary solutions to refugees. Ostensibly, many refugee and relief organizations have provided assistance in the country itself and in the countries to which Ukrainians have primarily fled. Existing organizations, such as the Ocalenie Foundation (Ocalenie Foundation 2023), are available in Poland and have found immediate answers to a diversity of economic and social problems, and new spontaneous groups have sprung up, such as the Polish Humanitarian Action (The Conversation 2023). Some of these unfold in civil society alone, but many activities demand strong coordination with governments that seek to coordinate support. Established refugee organizations have structures and strategies to manage new and unpredictable cases and are thus preadapted for new tasks. Preadaptation, a concept in evolutionary biology, must, however, be developed and translated more specifically to the role of political species and cannot necessarily be applied to all cases where experienced organizations are involved. Indeed, each case is specific. Although refugee organizations are ready to manage such crises, both in political and operational terms, and although the organizations build on profound experiences, there is still a particular demand for fast adaptation. This is also a feature of many unrehearsed initiatives not backed by existing organizations. This has led to instantaneous forms of adaptation, but after a while, the hecticness has disappeared, and the organizations have entered a new stage of adaptation, testifying to the gradual forms of adaptation observable even within a relatively short period of time. However, the short time perspective may also be relevant in cases where the behavior of private organizations is not primarily related to critical situations and spontaneous actions. We may also refer to and apply such a short time perspective when we zoom in on a specific stage of adaptation and, as part of a research strategy, define a limited period of time as the unit of analysis. If we extend the time perspective, there will clearly be more time to adapt to changing environments and situations, and it is an interesting question how much time the organizations need to respond and adjust. This is an issue that needs further theoretical attention, but by extending the time dimension and applying a long-term

Adaptation—examining vital adjustments 137 perspective, we will be able to study more carefully the accumulation of changes and recognize the gradual character of evolution. Long-term and embedded adaptation: state and organized business

We have now discussed a specific case of short-term adaptation and emphasized the spontaneous dimension because there is, indeed, an element of immediate reaction to such crises. Depending on the concrete situation, however, private organizations also draw on a history of close cooperation with an institutionalized environment. In the following example, we can develop this point in more depth. There is strong variation in the relationship between state and organized interests across countries and policy fields. They vary from rather fragmented forms of occasional influence to highly coordinated forms of stable power and, from government interactions with a diversity of groups to exchanges with few and selected organizations. These interactions have developed over a considerable time. Usually, a distinction has been made between Anglo-Saxon countries, with more pluralist cultures of policymaking (Katzenstein 2012), and countries of continental Europe, with various degrees of corporatism (Molina and Rhodes 2002). In the latter group of countries, further distinctions can be made as to whether relations between state and organized interests are directed by governments in a top-down fashion or characterized by the free organization of interests in a bottom-up mode—in other words, “state corporatism” or “liberal corporatism” (Lehmbruch 1977). These patterns all have significant consequences for adaptation. Some of these are codified and easy to trace, whereas others underlie norms that are harder to identify but nevertheless solid enough to govern relations. They furnish actors with important principles and tools for governing interactions, but individual cases can divert from these arrangements, and they may test existing rules and norms. As discussed in an earlier chapter, various ideas of mutualism may be applied to understand these relations. The general relations between state and organized interests today are the result of evolution, with a major background in the emergence of modern social classes and the professionalization of both states and interest organizations. A particular hallmark is the emergence of market economies, where markets are seen as key drivers in the development of societies, whether they have minimal states to counterbalance market forces or have very active states to support business development. This is an extremely important condition in the environment of organized interest, especially with regard to the organizations of business interests. In some countries, these conditions have led to a strong coordination of business by means of encompassing peak organizations representing the business community and fostered various policy coalitions (Hiscox 2020).

138 Adaptation—examining vital adjustments A compelling example is found in Japan, where Keidanren, also referred to as the Japan Business Federation, organizes large parts of business and, not least, large corporations typical of many industries in Japan. Established in 1946 but with longer historical roots, it has played a significant role in positioning postwar Japan in the global economy, and its goals resonate well with the changing Japanese governments with which Keidanren has always had close collaboration. This relationship does not suggest that relevant cooperation is not established with individual corporations or industry associations but that coordination with a peak body has had high priority in Japan, which, in turn, must adapt to diverse internal and external demands (The Japan News 2022). By incentivizing cooperation with peak associations rather than encouraging loose networking, important selection pressures have been put on Japanese business. This pattern is not unique to Japan but is found in a number of other countries where big business and government share important perspectives. Given the long-lasting relationship, it is easier to see how public and private bodies have become interdependent, a feature that is often more difficult to recognize in the short time forms of interactions. It therefore seems fruitful to apply the concept of co-adaptation to capture the mutually beneficial character of relations. State and organized interests both find ways of adaptation, but, depending on our research strategy, we can decide whose adaptive behavior we primarily seek to examine, always bearing in mind that adaptation is embedded in various political traditions. However, an operationalization of co-adaption is needed to qualify the concept and understand how private organizations engage in forms of adaptation that are different from those of public institutions and how private organizations vary in their adaptive capacity. Further to our previous discussion on the character of competition and cooperation, it is an important lesson that various symmetries and asymmetries must be accounted for in the study of these forms of co-adaptation. Mimicry: political parties as imitators

A large number of political species act solely in their own capacity, and they are concerned with guarding their own profile in a given population ecology. Consequently, there is no effort to imitate other species, neither in part nor in whole. In some cases, however, various advantages are associated with copying certain traits of other species, which in evolutionary biology is referred to as mimicry. However, mimicry is not a matter of evolving into new species, as in the case of speciation, where subspecies and eventually even full species may emerge, but rather a question of imitation. Hence, some species come to resemble other species, although they remain essentially different (Pasteur 1982). Mimicry can be more or less encompassing, but in general, it refers to specific aspects of their

Adaptation—examining vital adjustments 139 structure and behavior, and an attempt can, therefore, be made to define and examine different traits of private organizations. Mimicry is observable between different species, such as political parties, and if they imitate other species, they may under specific circumstances gain some advantages if, for instance, this other species enjoys a higher degree of legitimacy in society, is seen as more credible within a given issue, or manages a given organization more effectively. There are, however, also risks associated with mimicry because mimicking organizations may alienate members or donors and eventually lose their support. Indeed, political species have no interest in being taken for other species if this jeopardizes their image. If political parties portray themselves as traditional interest organizations, they are unavoidably cast as less concerned with the public good, and vice versa, if interest organizations take upon themselves obligations expected from political parties, they will be seen as less attentive to their constituencies. In such cases, mimicry may become counterproductive. In other words, there are benefits as well as costs associated with mimicking other political species, revealing mimicry’s interesting boundaries.4 It is disputable whether mimicry is possible and relevant within a single species, and what is actually the point of mimicking? Much hinges on how political species are distinguished. In a way, political parties belong to the same species and are separated from other private organizations, but political parties also have quite different roots and purposes, and therefore it makes sense to characterize parties as different species or subspecies. Accordingly, it would make sense for parties to imitate other parties in some contexts. Although specialized, many parties refer to the same general electorate and compete in the same elections, and they may formulate policies and appeal to many of the same voters (Bischof and Wagner 2020). They demonstrate an interest in a number of the same issues, but, interestingly, some parties have more successfully taken new issues on board, and such efforts are often copied by other parties. Although this is a general phenomenon among related parties (Adams and Somer-Topcu 2009), it is also a particular challenge in majoritarian systems with few parties running for office, as in the United Kingdom, in the United States, and in Australia. Over time, the Conservative Party and the Labour Party have adapted to this situation and have in some ways mimicked each other in the United Kingdom. This has also been characterized by some as rhetoric if change has not been wholehearted and thus contains an element of deception, which is typical of mimicry. In Australia, the Australian Labor Party and the Liberal/National Coalition have shared a number of policies, and also in the United States, the Republicans and Democrats have in some areas taken positions that make it hard for voters to distinguish effectively between the parties, thus making deception an element in party competition.

140 Adaptation—examining vital adjustments There is, no doubt, variation across different policy areas, but in foreignpolicy issues (Raunio and Wagner 2020), leading parties are supposed to provide the necessary continuity and stand behind the established strategy. In such cases, it can be discussed whether we have to do with cases of co-evolution, where different actors are exposed to the same environments and thus find the same kind of responses. There are, indeed, both opportunities and limitations with regard to mimicry. Crypsis: brotherhoods as secretive organizations

In a time when political actors seem very concerned about positioning themselves in a variety of contexts, including the new social media, it may seem odd that some actors are interested in hiding themselves, or at least in concealing some of their activities from the public eye. In this way, they may influence important parameters in politics either by leveraging government through various silent or secret practices, in some cases dubbed lobbying (Korkea-Aho 2021), or by “keeping government out of politics” (Underhill 1995). This is a phenomenon that can also be traced back to historical political systems. In a broader perspective, the separation of what is public, and ideally transparent, and what is private, and maybe secret to a wider audience, has been contested throughout history (Aries and Duby 1987). Among private organizations, different patterns of crypsis exist in politics. While certain political species display a high degree of secretive behavior in certain political systems, their activities are observable in other geographic contexts. Accordingly, crypsis needs to be mapped and studied carefully before cryptic structures and behaviors can be developed conceptually and recognized as an element of adaptation. As a starting point, we can distinguish between crypsis that relates to species as such and to specific aspects of their structure and behavior. Such a distinction enables us to approach crypsis as a hitherto undertheorized issue. In terms of secrecy, it is possible that the very existence of an organization is kept secret and, in principle, unknown to those outside the body itself, in which case it is difficult to verify it in the first place. In other situations, an organization is official and hence easy to recognize, but a smaller or larger part of its activities are deliberately veiled. Thus, it is possible that some species qualify as cryptic if a large and significant number of characters give them such a status, and therefore each of the characters must be weighted and evaluated, an important exercise in evolutionary biology. There is, however, also the possibility that only a few and less important characters endow private organizations with this crypticness; however, in such cases, the profoundness of the cryptic element also deserves scrutiny, although we must be cautious not to overstretch the concept.

Adaptation—examining vital adjustments 141 Many private organizations can be classified as secretive, or at least they have a secretive component in their profile. Some of them, but not all, are structured as brotherhoods, where internal solidarity is a key asset. They can have an economic, religious, or ethnic basis; be related to civil society alone; or manage various disguised business activities. One of the classical examples are mafia-like organizations, and this is a complex phenomenon because organized crime exists in and across many countries (Catino 2019). Different names apply depending on the geographic and historical context, and they are spread across different sectors of the economy and society. In essence, mafias are criminal organizations, and obviously some kind of illegal activity is a key reason for their secrecy. To reach their goals, violence is often used inside and outside the organization, a further problematic factor adding to their secret behavior. Depending on these conditions, mafias influence politics in many ways. Mafias control certain areas and particular economic activities and establish different kinds of private control that effectively keep governments at bay. In some cases, mafia organizations also liaise with bureaucrats and politicians. They may even finance their activities in ways that are concealed from the public and that to a greater or lesser extent, make public institutions dependent on the resources of organized crime. Of course, mafia organizations represent in many ways a special and extreme case among brotherhoods, and secrecy comes in various shades in these and other private organizations. As an example, the Freemasons, an organization that goes back to the Middle Ages and is represented in many countries, partly operates in a secret way (Ridley 2011). Unlike mafia organizations, it neither denies its existence nor does it build on criminal activity, but some of its activities are hidden. This example illustrates that crypsis is found among many different private organizations and that it is not as rare or strange as it may sound. However, further explorations are needed to study the many different kinds and degrees of crypsis as a fascinating manifestation of adaptation and to develop the theoretical foundations of the concept. Conclusion Obviously, adaptation occupies a prominent role among the many concepts available for studying evolution, but its translation and application to the analysis of political species is demanding, and it is not a concept or a word that is exclusively addressed in a scientific framework. Hence, it may lack precision. Without providing a complete solution to this problem, we draw on important insights from evolutionary biology and move beyond seeing adaptation as a trivial fact. Adaptation is a main concept unto itself, and it can be assisted by other concepts to capture a variety of structural and behavioral phenomena among private organizations.

142 Adaptation—examining vital adjustments With this inspiration, we recall that adaptation is not simply a matter of species being exposed to exigencies in their environment to which they react. Private organizations also play a pivotal role in molding their environment, and this creative effort must also guide our study of adaptation. Furthermore, we must remember that there are many cases displaying a lack of adaptation, and, accordingly, both defensive and offensive forms of action are missing. In such cases, there is a risk that the fitness of individual organisms, or even of entire species, will deteriorate and ultimately lead to their extinction. There are many experiences and concepts to tap into, and in this chapter, we have discussed and translated a few of these inspirations. First, adaptation is concerned with the instantaneous responses of private organizations. Challenges in their environment seem to come about rather suddenly and demand prompt reaction. Both existing and brand-new organizations find ways of handling such tasks, as illustrated by national and international refugee and relief organizations. They face a number of urgent crises, but they are also prepared to manage such pressures because economic, logistical, and political resources are built up through preadaptation, enabling swift action. Although these forms of adaptation demand further consideration, we must not restrict our study to short-term adaptations but extend the adaptation concept to cover other cases. Second, adaptation also includes the many cases where the focus is shifted toward the long time perspective, and, ultimately, evolution has this time scale. We briefly discussed the role of business peak associations, which are central to business-government relations in many countries, including Japan. Thus, interactions between political species and their environment evolve over considerable time, where the actors define rules and norms to regulate such relations. In view of this, it seems valuable to apply the concept of co-adaptation, as it recognizes the mutual patterns of long-term adaptation and also accounts for the features that characterize such stable relations. Third, a specific kind of adaptation relates to the capacity of political species to mimic other species and through these mechanisms achieve various benefits by deceiving others. It is further possible to differentiate among different forms of mimicry because a wide array of mimicry is available for private organizations, and we briefly discussed how political parties tend to imitate the efforts of other parties to enhance their own position in politics. By signaling responsible behavior and engaging in important issues, many parties try to portray themselves in ways that convince but also deceive potential voters to whom they appeal. Fourth, the last form of adaptation examined in this chapter involves the capacity of political species to escape detection and observation. In biology, this is referred to as crypsis, and it is possible to translate and apply this concept to cases where private organizations benefit from such behavior, maybe by concealing illegal activity, but not necessarily. An insight is that there can be various shades of crypsis, and we used brotherhoods as an obvious example and

Adaptation—examining vital adjustments 143 also referred to mafia organizations, which are difficult to detect and observe. In relation to this and the other concepts discussed in this chapter, however, further studies are required to apply and examine the multiple forms of adaptation. Notes 1. In this chapter, we draw on lessons from the general study of adaptation, which is also applicable to private organizations, and from studies of adaptation that scrutinize this category of organizations. Adaptation is further examined in studies of international relations, and this research is closely connected with evolutionary psychology, linking the micro and macro levels (Thayer 2004; Lebow 2017). 2. In this regard, it has a strong affinity with the concept of the meme, developed by Richard Dawkins to denote the development and transfer of various ideas and habits in cultural evolution (Dawkins 2006). 3. An important question is whether such species have a significant influence on the distribution of power in society more generally, an assumption that underlies some of these concepts. In biology, secretive species are attributed an important role in very specific contexts and relations but not necessarily in the broader environment. 4. There are also advantages associated with a species adopting a hybrid character, leaving some doubts about its essential status. The World Economic Forum (WEF) simultaneously conveys the impression that it is a kind of UN platform, a business association, a think tank, and an event bureau.

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Taxonomy—organizing evolutionary diversity

Taxonomies are established within many areas of scientific inquiry, including biology, where distinct traditions prevail. The concept of taxonomy raises a number of basic classificatory issues, but the units of analysis vary and so do the different criteria defined to capture them. This is the last chapter of the book before the final conclusion, and we can therefore draw on the previous discussions, but at the same time, taxonomies also inform the other concepts presented and the research carried out under each of them. In other words, taxonomies can be seen as both the beginning and the end of investigations. In nature, careful work is always needed to detect and observe organisms and group them into various species, but such an effort is also required in the study of private organizations. Importantly, this endeavor is not just launched to inventory species and bring a higher degree of order into a complex field but also to clarify the different pathways of political species and understand their various connections. As emphasized earlier in this book, there is a strong tendency toward the departmentalization of research on private organizations. Some actors are recognized and studied in certain disciplines but completely ignored in other fields that, again, concentrate on other organizations. Accordingly, research presents a rather skewed image of the real world of private organizations and fails to observe their diverse linkages. However, sufficient knowledge is not always available to identify relevant actors and define connections, and data can be contradictory and point in different directions, which complicates taxonomy building enormously. While acknowledging such uncertainties, it is worthwhile to bring the existing elements together because taxonomies may have a preliminary form and can be redrafted in the light of new discoveries. This is also the case in biology, where taxonomies are continuously subject to revisions—a reality, however, that should not cast a shadow over the fact that taxonomies are generally rather stable and provide important guidelines. The remainder of this chapter is divided into the following parts: First, we consult the specific literature in evolutionary biology and look at some of the key conceptual traditions in taxonomic thinking. These traditions are more advanced DOI: 10.4324/9781003212546-8

Taxonomy—organizing evolutionary diversity 145 and much older than in the social and political sciences, and hence experiences can provide important guidelines. We also seek guidance on how such taxonomies should be established and the basic principles underlying them. Second, we discuss how taxonomic ideas can be translated and applied to the study of a diversity of private organizations. There are also various traditions for ordering these organizations, but they are rather uncoordinated. Moreover, inspiration from the biological tradition is missing, but inspiration and tools from this field are productive in the advancement of a taxonomy. On the basis of these different literatures, a basic taxonomy is sketched. Third, we demonstrate the usefulness of such a taxonomy through a number of illustrations. However, we are aware of the complex problems that the classification of private organizations encounters. In some cases, categories are straightforward, while in other cases, the roots of the actors and their relations are difficult to determine, and intricate choices must be made. Of course, there are many classification problems, and we provide only a few examples. In the conclusion, we emphasize the value of taxonomic work, which tends to be disparate or missing in the study of private organizations, and we point to some of the tools that are necessary for the advancement of taxonomic thinking. Biological perspectives Since the early days of biological research and even before, attempts have been made to identify and record living species and establish some kind of inventory (Mayr 2001: 6–42; Gould 2002: 673–714). Naturalists and researchers may marvel at the fantastic diversity of nature, but they have moved further to catalog species and explain their complex relations, an ongoing and never-ending exercise involving many specialists. These exercises in biology have become ever more advanced: Greater parts of nature have been covered, including fossil records, and scholars have achieved a better understanding of species and their classification. Accordingly, this knowledge is highly valuable, and we may consult some of these principles in taxonomy building and apply them to private organizations. However, this discussion of the biological perspectives must necessarily be rather brief because we meet an enormous treasure of research and can only extract a few major ideas here. Early attempts conformed to the Bible and saw species as separate and constant entities put on Earth through the act of a single creator, and the task was then to place these species into some kind of permanent order. As an early naturalist, Linneaus was able to record an immense number of species. He also grouped them, but mainly according to a few criteria or even a single criterion. Accordingly, a hierarchy was established through the definition of different groups of organisms in a descending order comprising units—in biological terminology today also referred to as taxa—such as kingdoms, phyla, classes, orders, families, genera, and, as the last group, species (Linnaeus 1758). Under

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the individual species category, we again find different populations and individual organisms. These concepts are also helpful today, but they have been somewhat modified with more elaborated criteria reflecting scholarly advances. Yet, evolution was not considered, and, hence, species were seen as stable entities in the Linnean system. Lamarck, however, saw species organized into a hierarchy of lower and higher species, and although species were seen as adapted to different environments, humans, considered the most perfected species, were placed at the top of this ladder, presumably the intention of God but at odds with evolutionary theory (Gould 2002: 170–197). In some ways, vestiges of this Lamarckian view are found in the study of private organizations, where some organizations are seen as elevated and catering to the common good (political parties), while others tend to be perceived as purely self-interested (interest groups in general). Such a view of certain species being finer and more valuable than others stands in contradiction to evolutionary theory, however. With Darwin, and the emphasis on common descent in his path breaking On the Origin of Species (Darwin 1859), species were understood as undergoing gradual change and as linked in their evolution, branching out through a complex speciation process. To classify and rank species in the light of evolution, therefore, became a challenging enterprise in taxonomy, in some cases also referred to as “systematics,” a somewhat overlapping concept. However, this understanding was not achieved in one sweeping move. It has taken time to investigate and clarify the sophisticated mechanisms of species evolution and to build sound taxonomies. Various controversies in evolutionary biology have also accompanied this endeavor (Tassy 2011). Different concepts in evolutionary biology are today available for the systematic ordering of species, and they reflect consensus around many key issues, but in some instances, they also hold different priorities. This is an extraordinarily complicated affair, but let us take a brief look at some of them without recommending a particular choice. Indeed, the ordering of species is not only confronted with different ideas but also subject to technical questions in processing and visualizing different kinds of information. Overall, we may refer to the general concept of taxonomy, which seeks to place the recorded entities in a particular system following some key principles. Taxonomies provide an overview of species, and we are better able to understand their properties and relations if we see them from an evolutionary perspective, but taxonomic work also allows us to identify various inconsistencies and solve possible disagreements. A more specific name for a taxonomy that we often meet in arranging species is the dendrogram (Petchey and Gaston 2007), which is referred to in biology and in a number of other scholarly contexts. Accordingly, it aims to order the identified units, emphasizing how many diverse entities together constitute an encompassing group of entities (“upward classification”) or indicating how

Taxonomy—organizing evolutionary diversity 147 under a larger group we find many smaller entities (“downward classification”) (Mayr 1997: 124–150). This is also a helpful device to organize information, but the dendrogram itself may not necessarily bring information about how entities have evolved, and we may therefore miss the evolutionary perspective in this kind of diagram. Accordingly, an important question is how to include a variety of species while also adding a time dimension to account for evolution. Frequent reference is further to the concept of phylogeny, where data are presented in what is labeled as a phylogram or as a phylogenetic tree. Thus, “a phylogenetic tree depicts the evolutionary ancestry of a set of tips. The tips are typically living species or groups of species, but can also be fossil organisms, individual organisms, genes, or population” (Baum and Smith 2013: 35). This concept aims to place species in their complex evolution, and, hence, time is a key factor in phylogeny. Since sufficient material documenting the whole chain of evolution is not always available because the fossil record is broken, such a phylogenetic tree will tend to be incomplete. It can also be a problem placing species in the right categories for a number of other reasons, and empirical evidence may point in different directions. A general challenge with these different concepts, and their presentation, is that they do not always offer a full classification, which must be based on two criteria, namely “the ordered grouping of organisms into classes, according to their similarities and consistent with their inferred evolutionary history” (Mayr and Bock 2002: 191). Much work therefore needs to be done to integrate these kinds of complex information, but even if some elements are missing, we may still provide fairly good overviews based on the available information, and, through further data, verification or falsification is possible. Having briefly presented some of the conceptual underpinnings in taxonomic work, which may prove useful for our specific purpose, we can now address some of the elementary problems in the ranking of species. Before turning to species and the species level, it is important to recall that single species also belong to more encompassing units. In biology, reference is made to different taxa, already mentioned in relation to the levels formulated by Linneaus, and this allows us to place closely related species under the same taxon, such as genera and other and even more inclusive taxa. It is interesting to note that some species stand almost alone because related species are few or extinct (monotypic species), while other species are related to a host of contemporary species (polytypic species), whether these are subspecies or full species. Accordingly, phylogenetic trees will vary considerably, and this is an independent challenge that is exacerbated by the general problems of obtaining data and classifying species (Mayr and Ashlock 1991). When we leave the issue of the different levels of species and focus on individual species, placing them is complicated. Species undergo changes, departing from their immediate ancestors, and with small but still perceptible variations, new subspecies may emerge. These will all be relevant to consider in

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a phylogenetic tree. When species evolve into new “full species,” such species and the path leading to them via a status as incipient species must also be properly mapped, and in this way, we avoid using a typological species concept that sees species as constant entities. Hence, the relationships among species are not necessarily sharp and characterized by discontinuities but by continuities (Mayr 1997: 124–150). These basic principles are also worth considering when illustrating the diversity of private organizations that have evolved over long periods of time, albeit the time dimension is in no way comparable to the living world. It is also a problem that political species, different from processes in nature, in some cases seem to have several simultaneous ancestors, making the lineages different from biology. Although the ranking of private organizations must reflect the specific paths in political life, we may nevertheless apply some basic taxonomic ideas to establish a taxonomy. Which ancestors and which descendants to include in a tree, showing the various lineages, is subject to discussion. When common ancestry is recognized, it is, in principle, possible to establish a chain in the evolution of species, in principle back to the beginning of life on Earth, and during his voyage on board the Beagle in the 1830s, Darwin began to speculate about this, as illustrated in his renowned notebook sketch, shown in Figure 8.1. However, we usually face various obstacles in establishing clear and convincing lineages, and sometimes they seem to be rather diffuse. On top of this, we may have different ambitions to illustrate relations over evolutionary time. Available tools, such as dendrograms, phylograms, or for that matter cladograms (Hennig 1966), illustrate relations in each their way. These taxonomies are governed by different but kindred principles, and compared to the social and political sciences, they all offer more sophisticated thinking about how relations can be mapped and understood. Following such an ambition, in whichever form it is expressed, a distinction can be made between “rooted” and “unrooted trees” (Baum and Smith 2013: 35–67). The rooted tree will display the roots back to the ancestor that is shared by species in the tree. Therefore, the lineage begins at this point, the root. Unrooted trees, however, will include a shorter range of species to display the relations among the relatively few species, and, hence, they will not aim to include the first ancestral part of the root. These concepts and principles are described somewhat differently in the scholarly literature, and there is a rich variety of ways to establish such roots, in a way representing a special discipline within evolutionary biology. There are debates about the most appropriate philosophies and tools, but they can be used to illustrate different things depending on the concrete material. This is an interesting lesson we may take with us when trying to illustrate different kinds of roots and relations because the available data vary considerably in the case of private organizations.

Taxonomy—organizing evolutionary diversity 149

Figure 8.1 Darwin’s tree of life—the first version Source: Darwin (1837)

A further and enduring problem is how to categorize species on the basis of key “characters” (Baum and Donoghue 1995), an important aspect of taxonomy. If strict principles to govern categorization are missing, there is a risk that we fail to recognize intimately related species and display their relatedness, or that we lump together otherwise unrelated or distantly related species into the same category because they have superficial similarities. In such cases, the classification of species becomes a confusing affair determined by arbitrary principles. To categorize species, we need in some sense to disaggregate the species and identify the numerous characters that together constitute a species. Very detailed work is required to determine the relatedness of species, but a key dimension has been various structural properties regarding size and shape, or, in other words, their morphology. Information on these elements can reveal how species are

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related and how close or distant they are from each other, and this has taxonomic consequences, but to varying degrees, this information also gives us some clues about their adaptation. Morphological traits must be specified to capture the species under scrutiny, but a range of other features are also of great importance. In the case of birds, we will have to identify not just such characters as their size, shape, and coloration but also individual geographic, sexual, age-dependent, and seasonal variations and “blend morphological, phylogenetic, and ecological parameters” (Töpfer 2018: 65) to describe and analyze them. Accordingly, also many behavioral features need to be identified and described to analyze their interactions with the environment. There are some general characters we will need to study for all species, but some characters are highly species-dependent. Such characters must be defined, and each of them must be evaluated, and it is necessary to consider which comparative weight they should be given in the overall classification. Obviously, these characters are essentially related to biology, but their general experiences with ordering systems are useful to consider when defining the properties of private organizations. The concept of taxonomy is known in several disciplines, but special traditions exist in evolutionary biology. Different kinds of taxonomies exist, and they are based on discrete philosophies and apply various tools to organize information on species and their relatedness. Today, it is recognized that species are not constant units but subject to evolution, and this requires conscientious studies of species diversity and the different paths behind it. First, the time dimension is always of crucial importance in taxonomies and highlights the key role of ancestry. Instead of seeing species as isolated entities, shaped independently, we must recognize their complex backgrounds, an exercise that enables us to identify those species with whom they are closely or distantly related through evolution. Tracing the roots, for instance, through their genetic properties, helps determine how species are linked, and we will find that species both form parts of strong lineages with many other related species and lineages with very few species. Different strategies can be employed to develop such taxonomies, and depending on the available data and purpose of the taxonomy, periods of different durations may be covered. Second, a further task is to identify a number of key characters to define species. These characters address various morphological, physiological, and behavioral features. This is a meticulous exercise, where biology has strong traditions of examining and appreciating both general similarities and discovering small variations in the properties of species, all related to a given space. Such traits, however, must not only be identified but also be weighted in the overall classification of species. Therefore, the definition of single species and their characters is essential to facilitate the creation of taxonomies, involving the ranking of species in more or less encompassing taxa. Such basic ideas can also be transferred to the study of private organizations.

Taxonomy—organizing evolutionary diversity 151 Reflections and translations Turning toward the social and political sciences, we find various traditions for constructing taxonomies of private organizations, which, however, are given a variety of names and are understood differently. Therefore, taxonomic ideas and experiences from evolutionary biology encounter a research area characterized by disparate traditions and, consequently, a field in need of a systematic and evolutionary perspective. With a large number of actors, it seems obvious to develop taxonomies to embrace this significant diversity. Accordingly, there is ambition to distinguish among different organizations and classify many but not necessarily all private organizations (e.g., Weber 1922; Wayne and Babchuk 1959; Schwarz 1979; Salamon and Anheier 1996). A fruitful example of ordering organizations using biological insights can be found in the work by McKelvey (1982), who views the emergence of organizations from an evolutionary perspective, which is often ignored in taxonomic work on private organizations. However, the unit of analysis is here conceived in rather broad terms, including public and private entities, and not zooming in on the political dimension per se.1 In general, however, approaches tend to include only selected parts of this encompassing population. The fact that only some species, not the entire community, are recorded is an interesting feature, implying that private organizations are without common roots and that the categorization of such political species is generally firm and stable. Such practices in establishing viable taxonomies, however, conflict with taxonomies in biology, where both the origins and relations of species take center stage. Indeed, the idea behind the design of species taxonomies in nature is generally to capture the diversity and relatedness of the entities through evolution and to process and synthesize much information (Mayr 1997: 124–150). The basic definition of the wide and sprawling community of organizations either is wanting or varies considerably. There is no agreement on how to define private organizations and which entities to include. Under these circumstances, specific species of organizations, such as political parties (Gunther and Diamond 2003), associations (Knoke 1990), also labeled as interest groups (Gray and Lowery 1995), and think tanks and other knowledge-based organizations (Wellstead and Howlett 2022), are addressed, and it would be more correct to say that these tend to be inventoried rather than included in proper taxonomies. In gross outline, a major problem with research on private organizations, no matter which actors are studied and no matter which labels are applied, is that studies tend to have a typological flavor with political species being sharply demarcated. In other words, species are largely seen as discontinuities, not continuities, as in evolutionary thinking. This makes it difficult to understand how species are related both across time and from a contemporary perspective. Certain attempts are made, however. Studies discuss the rise or decline in institutionalized relations among parties, associations, or movements and bring interesting

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insights (Allern, Otjes, Poguntke et al. 2021), but a few analyses move further and ask questions about their possible divergence or convergence (Fraussen and Halpin 2018) or even consider their evolutionary relatedness (Kitschelt 2006), an issue of primary concern in this book. To get a better grasp of the literature and concepts embracing a larger or smaller section of private organizations, a distinction must be made between organizations at the national and international levels. At the national level of investigation, we find a diversity of scholarly approaches where especially political parties tend to be defined as a distinct cluster of actors separated from other kinds of actors, and, as discussed in several of the other chapters, specific literature addresses and records this specific species. Interesting efforts are also made to capture the much larger and heterogeneous community of interest groups that go by broad names such as associations, interest organizations, and voluntary associations, to mention a few (Van der Meer, Grotenhuis, and Scheepers 2009). Indeed, there is a demand for classifying specific clusters of organizations within large populations. Usually, distinctions are made among associations having different material and ideational orientations, and these basic categories can be organized into various subgroups. Relatedly, they can be arranged according to the distribution of costs and benefits, pointing to policy fields where interest groups are active or absent. Although this idea tends to be policy-centered, we also learn something about the taxonomy of organizations (Wilson 1980).2 Another interesting tradition is associated with the research on non-profit organizations (Anheier 2014: 60–95), and among them we find many organizations that can be characterized as political species. Essentially, the concept excludes all profit-driven kinds of firms, but not all actors are necessarily private in origin and may have a public basis. In our context, however, this concept is problematic because it does not cover all private organizations in politics, such as profit-oriented actors, but it does, however, include a number of public entities. A related concept, a non-market organization (Lawton and Rajwani 2015), comes from the management discipline. There is a strong demand for coordination among firms, manifest in organizations such as business associations, and this concept recognizes those organizations in the business community that essentially work outside the realm of markets but may influence them in various ways. However, government institutions may also be seen as a form of nonmarket organizations and therefore they are invalid for our purposes. At the international level of investigation, we meet a range of further concepts to denote collective action, such as non-governmental organizations (White 1951), transnational organizations (Nye and Keohane 1971), and the more recent non-state actors (Risse-Kappen 1995), but other concepts circulate. Thus, these organizations are in some cases also labeled social movements (James and Van Seters 2014), or just movements, to emphasize various informal properties and action forms, and reference to social movements is also common in domestic politics (Tilly 2004). It would be useful to integrate studies on different kinds

Taxonomy—organizing evolutionary diversity 153 of movements and organizations (Campbell 2005), and this challenge can be formulated to bring social movements and other political species closer together (Hutter, Kriesi, and Lorenzini 2018). The relatively inclusive concepts found at the international level tend to be used interchangeably, and their primary purpose is not to capture and differentiate among particular political species. The most frequently used concept is no doubt “international non-governmental organizations,” commonly referred to as INGOs, a label mainly used at the international level but with spillovers to the national level. They are studied as a subfield of all international organizations to which intergovernmental bodies also belong. Conceptually, major emphasis is placed on what non-governmental organizations are not, namely governmental, and not what they actually are, namely private; so conscientious work is needed to reach a positive definition (Vakil 1997) but also to differentiate among nongovernmental organizations according to key indicators. The INGO concept was originally developed in diplomatic circles after the Second World War, but the diplomatic usage of the concept is broader than in scholarly work. Whereas INGOs in the diplomatic world explicitly include certain organizations created by business, such as industry associations (Ronit 2022), research tends to see INGOs as exclusively rooted in civil society. Somewhat ironically, most scholars seem to ignore the approach of practitioners whose work they seek to study. The concept, even in a broader understanding, is still not without problems, however, as it excludes certain private organizations, such as professional service firms, that are also active in politics and contribute to the diversity of political species. The concept of non-state actors and the related “transnational organizations” also incorporate organizations at the international level (Reinalda 2011). The prefix “non-state” may suggest that these organizations are private in character, but “non-state” just indicates that they do not represent states. In fact, other actors are accommodated under this concept, including municipalities below the level of states and intergovernmental organizations above the level of states. In sum, taxonomic work can draw on a variety of studies that take an interest in private organizations. The bodies of literature covering a wide array of organizations, such as interest groups, non-profit organizations, and nongovernmental organizations, to name a few concepts addressing this bewildering array of organizations, are valuable, but we need a differentiated understanding of the various private organizations about their origins and how they are related. Obviously, the translation of insights from the biological tradition must consider these diverse political species, and we shall briefly discuss how these experiences can be translated to develop a taxonomy, or at least a sketch thereof. Indeed, taxonomies are strategic devices to organize complex information, and key ideas from evolutionary biology can be transferred to study private organizations, but there are also clear deviations from the living world, and new principles must be formulated.

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First, evolutionary biology teaches us about the origin of species, and this is essential to understanding how species have evolved and how they are related. Also, private organizations build on other and earlier forms of organizations, and such patterns must be scrutinized to better understand their roots. Unlike nature, we must identify the origin of private organizations in a different way because lineages follow different paths. The market and civil society are the two essential pools from which private organizations originate, leading to the formation of organizations and enabling us to trace the close and distant origins of organizations. Second, existing attempts at taxonomy building tend to embrace fragments of the broader population of private organizations, and this is expressed through a range of concepts, but there is little discussion among scholars working in different traditions. In general, taxonomies take the form of inventories, where a smaller or larger group of actors are listed as separate entities, whereas their complex relations are not given due attention. To analyze the diversity of private organizations, we need to define a number of structural and behavioral characters to identify their similarities and differences and establish more precisely how they are related. The definition of private organizations as political species and their relatedness and evolution are unsettled, and these themes have only attracted attention to some of the concepts discussed earlier. Essentially, current organizations are rooted in other and earlier organizations, in principle stretching back in history, but it would not always be appropriate to apply the same concepts, or for that matter, expect an equal precision as in biology. Modestly expressed, the taxonomy, presented in Figure 8.2, only borrows certain ideas from the biological tradition, such as the work on dendrograms and phylograms, to illustrate parts of the evolutionary history, trace certain roots and links, and establish some degree of classification. This sketch only provides some preliminary guidelines because considerable work is needed to establish a compact taxonomy. In the foregoing chapters, we defined what falls under the broad category of private organizations and provided a number of examples, and we can now explain some basic elements of the figure. First, the figure shows the basic origins of private organizations as political species in market and civil society, which are important pillars in the taxonomy. Market and civil society form separate and interrelated pools, nurturing the evolution of organizations. In some cases, it is difficult to specify the organizational ancestries, but we may still trace species back to market, civil society, or a combination of these, and these pools contribute on a continuous basis to the formation of organizations. Second, there is a rather strong stability in the taxonomic groups above the species level. These different groups (employers/producers and employees/ consumers) are contained by the larger taxonomic group of all market-based organizations, and the other groups above the species level (secular, religious) are embraced by the broader taxonomic group of all civil-society-based organizations. These categories are meaningful in their focus on historical and current entities, but it may be harder to integrate earlier and even extinct political species.

Market

Individual: Estate

Employer Producer Community

Employee Consumer Community

Secular Community

Religious Community

Civil Society

Collective: Guild

Guild

Band/clan

Club/society

Club/society

Club/society

Confraternity/brotherhood

Cartel

Association/chamber

Social movement

Social movement

Military order

Firm with own

Self-Regulators

Association:

Association

Guild

Union

Professional body

Manufacturer

Religious order Mission

Firm with specific

Professional body

political task: Law/accounting

Consumer Organization Professional body

Political party

Political party

Political party

Consulting services Communication Social media

Club/society Lodge Association Social movement

Foundation

Foundation

Foundation

Political party

Knowledge-based

Knowledge-based

Knowledge-based

Knowledge-based

organization

organization

organization

organization

Figure 8.2 A taxonomic sketch of private organizations as political species3

A u t h o r i t y

political action

Taxonomy—organizing evolutionary diversity 155

Trading company

P u b l i c

Merchant

Religious body (denomination):

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Third, public authority always provides an important institutional environment that enables or impedes the work of private organizations. A general legal framework shapes the basic conditions of private actors, and concrete policies influence organizations rooted in market and civil society. Public institutions further entertain various relations with private organizations and, to varying degrees, encourage them to organize their activities in ways that facilitate their interactions. Fourth, private organizations are usually associated with specific historical periods. They emerge and die out because economic, social, and political conditions beneficial to their existence change. However, species continue if they successfully adapt to new environments or, as a result of specific circumstances, they evolve into new subspecies or full species. In such processes, organizations are characterized by gradual evolution, but the speed with which this is accomplished varies. Fifth, existing political species are departure points for ever-new species. It is possible to document certain lineages in evolution and indicate the ancestors and descendants of particular species. Thus, many private organizations can trace their origins far back in time, indicating many forms of gradual evolution, but some lineages are either rather short or diffuse, and the precision with which we can establish these connections varies. Sixth, there is great creativity among private organizations, and different combinations of organizations can be actively engaged in the evolution of new political species when they outsource tasks and delegate resources. Under these circumstances, the identification of clear lineages is sometimes complicated. In these processes, also a variety of hybrids emerge, but it is difficult to determine whether such entities can be sustained as new species in the long run. Applications The construction of a taxonomy to embrace the evolution and diversity of private organizations is demanding, but we have sketched some basic components. As in evolutionary biology, we encounter several taxonomic problems, and we have addressed them without claiming that they are now safely resolved. In the following, we discuss a few but by no means exhaustive list of examples with which taxonomic work must grapple. First, we discuss some problems related to various ecclesiastical organizations and show how some religious orders evolved from the Catholic Church, which historically has influenced the lives of many private organizations. Second, we delve into problems associated with the distinction between political parties and social movements, which are two species categories that seem easy to separate, but in some cases, they are closely related. Third, there are many knowledge-based organizations in politics today, and we discuss how to categorize individual actors and trace the roots of professional services corporations, which are active in markets and in politics. Fourth, whistleblower organizations are a rather new phenomenon in politics with roots

Taxonomy—organizing evolutionary diversity 157 in the resources and initiatives of multiple organizations, thus constituting a hybrid, which is difficult to order taxonomically. Single origin of multiple species: church and religious orders

An important pillar in civil society is the Church and this section is concerned with the Catholic Church as the root of many organizations. Different belief systems and practices permeate civil society, and they are contained in the pool we have referred to, but religion is also highly institutionalized, with solid organizations underlying different degrees of centralization. Furthermore, religions, or the institutions behind them, have been important economic powers. Being a major landowner, apparent in the Middle Ages, or holding other kinds of material assets, the Church was also a part of the market and of the economic sphere (Ekelund, Tollison, Anderson et al. 1996). Furthermore, the Church has been a key authority in society and integrated into the state, but with modern states claiming sovereignty, ties were broken and the Church removed from many areas of politics, but it is still important in formulating and maintaining values in society. With these backgrounds, the Church has accumulated different resources, which has consequences for related private organizations (De Munck 2017). In an evolutionary perspective, the Catholic Church has fostered, approved, or facilitated a diversity of organizations assigned either to various spiritual tasks, such as many religious orders, or to different worldly needs, such as a variety of guilds (Prak 2004). Tracing the roots of faith-based and faith-related organizations is an insurmountable task. Both from a historical perspective and a contemporary one, we meet a complex pattern of organizations. An interesting question is whether the different orders under the Catholic Church have evolved through a number of successive organizations or whether the Catholic Church contributed to the parallel emergence of multiple organizations. Such pathways are not mutually exclusive but can be valid in different cases and at different points in time and reveal the roots and taxonomic ranks of different religious organizations. Following evolutionary biology, it could, for instance, mean that new species gradually evolve, replace, or add to existing species, but it could also imply that populations of the same species colonize different geographic spaces concurrently. Within Catholicism, different religious orders were approved by the Vatican. In Catholic canon law, a distinction is also made today between “canons regular,” “monastic order,” “mendicant order,” and “clerics regular,” but we also find other entities listed (The Vatican 2022), all of which are of different size and complexity. An account must further be taken of the various confraternities and fraternities related to such orders, some of which bear a somewhat secular mark. All these specific organizational categories are, however, developed for other purposes and not straightforwardly arranged in a taxonomy. Nevertheless,

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serious work with the definitions inside the Catholic Church indicates that attempts have been made to differentiate among various entities in this universe of private organizations. Some, like the Canons Regular of Saint Augustine and the Order of St. Benedict, date back to the fourth and sixth centuries, and other orders draw on a remarkable history. Especially the eleventh and twelfth centuries demonstrate vibrant activity, but also the sixteenth century was creative in the evolution of new religious orders as part of the reformation and counterreformation (Donnelly 1995). These religious orders embraced Europe, North and South America, and later on Australia and New Zealand, but they can also be found in other places where missionary activities came to play a significant role. They were engaged in relief work and in education, but occasionally also in warfare. The evolution of different orders is attributable to processes in and among the organizations in which reformers struggled with conservatives, and this gave rise to organizational renewal. Accordingly, new orders have been founded in response to or in continuation of existing orders, and new niches have been carved out. In this way, they have the same ancestor in the form of the Catholic Church—connected by a range of consecutive species—but the orders have not simply replaced each other over time. With the same origin in Catholicism, such private organizations are in a number of cases based on more or less the simultaneous approval of the Vatican, offering specific kinds of lineages. These pathways have consequences for how we identify the roots in the evolutionary tree of the religious orders and the various offshoots of these organizations. Many have survived through history, today displaying a rich organizational diversity in this part of civil society. Clear origins: from social movement to political parties

Social movements and parties are generally understood as two rather different kinds of political species among private organizations, and, accordingly, they tend to be accommodated under different concepts. It is not a problem that different concepts are used to describe and embrace them because they do have distinct features that demand a separation into different categories, but we miss an overarching concept that brings them together as they are related in numerous ways. It seems that social movements and political parties represent organizations placed at different endpoints of a continuum. Movements are not well integrated into political systems but seem in some ways to stand outside, or at least on the margins, whereas political parties belong to the recognized core actors. They further manifest different forms of activity: Movements launch protests and organize other spectacular activities to advance their cause, whereas parties, at least the established ones, hold important government functions. While movements are generally depicted as having a less formalized working style, parties have a high degree of formalization with established hierarchies,

Taxonomy—organizing evolutionary diversity 159 but things can be muddy, and movements have, in fact, many of the same traits as formal organizations (Davis and Zald 2005). However, taxonomists must struggle with classifying such organizations and scrutinizing possible evolutionary connections, a few of which can be sketched: First, we may view movements and parties as organizations that potentially replace each other over evolutionary time and then disappear. Second, movements and parties may be actively involved in the creation of each other and therefore do not merely substitute each other. A third and related understanding sees movements and parties as coexisting entities characterized by competition and cooperation, depending on their concrete profiles. These different scenarios can have explanatory value in different cases, and thus there is no single way to rank movements and parties taxonomically; thus, some studies seek to bring the study of these actors together from an integrated perspective (Kitschelt 2006; Della Porta, Fernandez, Kouki et al. 2017). It can be difficult to determine the typical pathways in the evolution of social movements and political parties. Interesting cases are found in the withering away of the socialist systems in Central and Eastern Europe in the 1980s and 1990s and the emergence of new political systems (Piotrowski 2015), hosting a diversity of novel private organizations. No single model was invigorated. However, social movements played an important role in gathering the opposition, engaging in political manifestations, and formulating demands. These social movements also had a key role in negotiating with the old order, little by little wrestling power away from the ruling leaders, and presenting themselves as forces with alternative perspectives for the future. Later in this process, they got the opportunity to take control and reform the political systems. They were not concerned with particular policy fields, otherwise typical of many social movements, but with politics as a whole. In the early stages of this process, however, some of the movements in Central and Eastern Europe flagged themselves as new and independent trade unions. This was a smart move because the founding of genuine opposition parties would have been very offensive. In Poland, Solidarność started life as an alternative union, and many protests actually began in various industries, but over time the organization underwent important changes and also embraced different dissident groups (Kubow 2013). Later, and after the demise of socialism, new political parties with roots in the original movement emerged, representing different ideologies. In this way, the social movement gave impetus to the formation of new political parties tasked with other functions, and, today, a number of parties in Poland and other parts of Central and Eastern Europe can trace their history back to the heyday of the movements in the 1980s and 1990s.4 From a taxonomic perspective, it is interesting to learn how political parties can have clear roots in various social movements. In these cases, changes came gradually but were significant when the parties ran for elections and became involved in government. Indeed, private organizations may go through various evolutions

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that change their key characters and lead them from one category of organization into another. This evolution does not characterize all social movements and parties but is an opportunity for some organizations and in some historical contexts. Multiple origins and characters: emergence of whistleblower organizations

Social movements engage in actions where the idea is to mobilize people for a specific cause and influence the public discourse, bringing about various forms of change in a given policy field or in society as such. They also tend to bring alternative visions into agenda setting and problem solving, and, varying from case to case, they combine activism and expertise, potentially taking on the character of knowledge-based organizations (Della Porta and Diani 1999). The development of this capacity is often necessary to become recognized as an organization that not only identifies societal problems but also offers practical solutions. Nevertheless, there can be various costs associated with skipping a more radical strategy, participating in the policy process, and taking on new roles, but as with other organizations, the knowledge dimension tends to evolve over time, and it is one of the many characters that can be used to classify them. However, many private organizations are characterized by their knowledge profiles. One example is the many professional associations and societies that organize members with particular educations and skills and thus come to represent specific kinds of knowledge (Freidson 1988). By keeping various entry barriers to these organizations, they maintain a high level of standards and guard their role as knowledge-based organizations. Such organizations may, however, experience certain overlaps with trade unions, and there will be some differences as to whether the knowledge element is foregrounded. Think tanks can also be seen as knowledge-based organizations and thrive in many policy fields and in many countries (Planells-Artigot, Ortigosa-Blanch, and Martí-Sánchez 2021). Their missions are variable, but in general, they seek to develop expertise, influence political agendas, and impact concrete decisionmaking. Their style of working often compels them to work on specific projects, and as private organizations, they provide important input to and liaise with other private actors with whom they share key values. These are examples of knowledge-based organizations that in many ways are distinctly different yet share some commonalities regarding their key characters. They can interact in many different ways, and it is interesting to investigate such linkages. Furthermore, we may study how certain features are carried over from these actors into another group of political species, namely whistleblower organizations, and how these organizations are evolutionarily linked to the organizations just described. In recent years, we have witnessed the emergence of whistleblowing, challenging the powers of established organizations at national and international levels. Organizations in the public and private sectors are affected by whistleblowing

Taxonomy—organizing evolutionary diversity 161 because they sometimes conduct activities that employees or other insiders find highly problematic and want to disclose to the public in order to be remedied. Focus is generally on the activity of anonymous but insightful individuals who release information to the media but whose positions can be threatened should their real identities be revealed. Less attention is directed toward those private organizations that coordinate this work and facilitate whistleblowing. The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, Inc. (ICIJ), with its Offshore Leaks Database, is an organization that works as a platform for critical fact-finding, and it has critically examined cases in areas such as tax evasion. It issues reports and launches campaigns involving journalists from affiliated media. It also builds upon and embraces whistleblowing as a special activity. The US-based ICIJ started life in 1997 but dates back to 1989 and founding of the Center for Public Integrity (CPI). Today, it draws members from different countries to accumulate resources, exchange information, and bring different sources into investigations (ICIJ 2023). The organization belongs to a new kind of political species among the many private organizations in politics. It combines features from other species, such as movements, professional societies, and think tanks, who engage in a number of similar activities but without having a complex profile. Analog to taxonomy building in biology, we must carefully evaluate the different characters of an organization to establish whether we can identify a new species, and this organization has a number of traits that distinguish it from other related species. Indeed, it has a hybrid character with multiple origins in other species, some of which have played an instrumental role in the creation of the organization. Such backgrounds are easily identifiable, although certain roots are harder to detect, but all this information is helpful from a taxonomic perspective. Diffuse origins and characters: professional services corporations

Today, boosting knowledge has become increasingly important in private organizations, and as just discussed, knowledge is held by a diversity of species. We do not necessarily have to classify them as knowledge-based organizations and overstretch the concept because the knowledge dimension varies. However, the knowledge profile is one of the characters that needs to be specified in taxonomic work. Through niche building, organizations develop very different forms and levels of knowledge, and hence, competitive or cooperative relations evolve among private organizations. While some organizations expand their capacities to qualify their own work, other organizations specialize and offer various kinds of expertise to other actors on a commercial basis. This business has become highly visible through the activities of giant professional services corporations with a presence in many countries around the world, but professional services are made available by a variety of private actors.

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We meet an important taxonomic challenge in the analysis of these actors. Should all corporations be understood as political species and be included in the wide and heterogeneous community of private organizations discussed in this book? In a general sense, firms can be seen as political actors in their own right because they embody important authority functions in society (Mikler 2018), but they may also take action to represent their individual preferences on particular political issues. However, the major scene for individual corporations is the market, and success or failure ultimately depends on their market-related behavior. Only some corporations are actively geared toward politics, and it can therefore be problematic to include all corporations in the community of political species. We may, however, include individual corporations that establish standards and practices that gain broader currency and function as substitutes for public regulation and also embrace professional services corporations that assist other private actors in defining interests and implementing policies. In these different roles, such corporations come into competition with other private organizations that engage in similar activities. More work, however, must be done to determine what qualifies as a political species. It is an interesting challenge to examine the origin of these specific corporations that seem rather diffuse. They have their background in the market and in the evolution of particular industries and professions (McKenna 2006). Nourished by demands in the market as well as among regulators to document corporate activity and based on expert knowledge, a variety of private organizations have emerged. They further seem to emanate from earlier or already-existing private organizations or have taken over their activities, which is an important feature in the evolution of political species. Thus, it is possible to search for additional origins of private service corporations in many kinds of bodies organizing industries and professions that represent more than individual corporations. We therefore find complex patterns showing that these kinds of private organizations have many ancestors. Accordingly, this poses several interesting questions about the taxonomic rank of the many different service providers, which probably can be grouped into different political species. Thus, a cluster of private organizations has emerged to assist other organizations in their political work, spanning activities such as auditing, accounting, and consulting (Shore and Wright 2018). The so-called Big 4 (Deloitte, KPMG, PwC, and EY) are used as shorthand to describe some of the biggest players, and they cover a number of the same services and are present in many countries and policy fields (Latulippe 2018). Among the service providers involved in political life, we may, however, also include other firms and professional activities, such as law firms and public affairs firms (Harris and Fleisher 2016). In fact, there are a number of functional overlaps between such organizations, making it necessary to examine the finer nuances and identify the key characters in their profiles to classify them. Interestingly, many of these actors do not only provide services according to a contract. To varying degrees, they also play an active role in the formulation of

Taxonomy—organizing evolutionary diversity 163 values and goals in certain areas of politics (Deloitte 2023) and not only in relation to the concrete assistance provided to others. Some of them take independent initiatives to examine problems in society, and they publish various analyses, somewhat akin to the job done by think tanks. This suggests that these corporations have significant analytical capacities and mobilize them to sharpen their profiles, altogether features that make classification complicated. Conclusion In taxonomic work, the evolution and relatedness of species are key priorities. It is a complex task to examine and clarify relations from a time perspective, but various tools can be applied and greater precision can be achieved. Visualizing this information can further improve our understanding of the diversity of political species, and in this chapter, an attempt has been made to sketch some key elements of a taxonomy. The lessons from biology that species are not constant units and that species have certain characters that make it possible to distinguish them are important to bear in mind and can also guide the study of private organizations. Many concepts and tools are available and lend themselves to translation, but in many ways, evolutionary biology is much more advanced in terms of taxonomy building. Accordingly, there is a great risk of overshooting when consulting the biological tradition. At the current state of research, it is, however, possible to seek inspiration in basic taxonomic thinking and to establish a system that includes a number of major private organizations active in politics. We have discussed some empirical examples, and although they only bring some fragments of the great many experiences with private organizations, they are nevertheless helpful to discuss some intricacies of taxonomic work. First, we have seen that some political species, created at almost the same time and working concurrently, have a single and identifiable origin. The taxonomic pattern is not just characterized by a long chain of organizations modified over time and adding a successive list of new organizations but also by a number of organizations having the same ancestor. Within the Catholic Church, a number of different religious orders have been in operation at the same time in history or are still active, displaying interesting time overlaps. Thus, the Vatican has historically been a very creative force in the making and approval of a diversity of organizations. Second, political parties are not supreme political species defined by a particularly noble purpose and elevated from other actors, and they have many different origins in a variety of related private organizations, such as social movements. Movements can play an important role in the gradual evolution of political parties and function similarly to incubators. They can give rise to a multiplicity of political parties, as shown in Eastern and Central Europe and highlighted in the case of the Polish Solidarność. In this case, we see clear links between movements and parties, and this evolution has been accomplished over a very short period of time.

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Third, lineages can be very complex, and in some cases, several organizations may be active in the creation and management of new and hybrid organizations, as seen in the case of whistleblower organizations such as the ICIJ. Social movements, professional associations, and think tanks contribute resources and may continue their work alongside the new organizations, leaving special tasks to the new whistleblower organizations. Although there are many cases where private organizations have a single immediate ancestor, there are also cases where organizations have more than one founder, and this gives us a better understanding of such hybrids. Fourth, some private organizations have diffuse origins that are complex to detect. It is difficult to trace the roots of certain political species back to other organizations with an active or potential role in politics, but they have their roots in the market or in civil society, which provides a pool for their emergence. In some cases, individual professional services firms, involving a variety of activities, may also play a role in politics. Actors such as the Big 4 represent interesting kinds of lineages, where species accumulate resources without being based on collective action, as is characteristic of many other private organizations. Notes 1. Although anchored in the study of firms, contributions in organization theory may embrace all sorts of organizations and recognize diversity, which, in principle, is an advantage in the study of how organizations are evolutionary related. 2. Four kinds of politics are identified: majoritarian politics (benefits or costs imposed on all), interest group politics (costs or benefits are concentrated on particular groups), client politics (benefits are concentrated and costs are carried by others), and entrepreneurial politics (benefits are widely distributed, but costs are concentrated). This schema informs us about variations in their organizational behavior but is not very informative about the origin of organizations. 3. This figure indicates that private organizations are rooted in different communities, but the relative weight of these communities and their contributions to the formation of private organizations change over evolutionary time, displaying more or less creative phases. Although major species are shown as fixed in a single community, they have in many cases roots in multiple communities. To reduce complexity, such cross-overs are not indicated in the figure. To various degrees, it is possible to trace ancestors and descendants, and the straight lines and angled lines indicate how descendants follow ancestors, but essentially the figure displays various “unrooted trees.” Nevertheless, ancestry is complex, and descending political species (rows below) may be active in the creation of species that seem to have appeared at an earlier stage (rows above). However, the formation of such species is not a reinvention of old or existing species, because they will always appear in new versions on an evolutionary path, and thus the rows below do not necessarily show the most recent political species. Accordingly, arrowed lines display mutual influences between two actors (two-direction arrow), or between multiple actors where only some of these influences are mutual (onedirection arrow). 4. Solidarność still exists as a trade union, but it has lost its key role.

9

Conclusion—combining conceptual insights

Private organizations embrace a diversity of species and are vital elements in politics. Different theoretical approaches and different empirical foci have been chosen to gain a better picture of their role, and considerable advances have been made, yet many issues are neglected and a variety of problems are still poorly understood. New perspectives are needed, and this book has drawn on insights from the broad field of evolutionary biology. Those parts of the social and political sciences where there is explicit inspiration from biology tend to be concerned with either patterns of human behavior or, alternatively, grand societal experiences. Entities such as private organizations fall between. Analyses that actually try to grapple with this intermediate and highly complex level, tapping into the biological tradition, also have their deficiencies, however. They tend to overlook the historical origins of organizations, thus avoiding important questions regarding their evolution. Furthermore, they usually concentrate on certain species, such as firms, or zoom in on certain geographies, such as single countries, sidelining other actors and conditions and, not least, ignoring their political dimension. In a way, this kind of selectivity contradicts the biological approach, where emphasis is on the relatedness of species in time and space. Somewhat similar to what the holistic tradition does in the study of nature, we need to cast the net wide, win broader experiences, and recognize the great diversity in political life. This book has applied a number of key concepts in evolutionary biology and discussed them in a condensed form, with a view to utilizing them in the specific context of private organizations. We have also consulted the pertinent bodies of literature in the social and political sciences to examine whether parallel problems, and not necessarily the same concepts, have been addressed. In the different cases chosen to illustrate the evolution and diversity of political species, a number of concepts were applied. However, these cases, including a diversity of countries and organizations and attending to the historical dimension, do of course not deliver the final proof of evolutionary thinking. They definitely show strong potential, but more work is required to confirm the usefulness of evolutionary thinking with regard to private organizations as political species. DOI: 10.4324/9781003212546-9

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The remainder of this concluding chapter returns to the question of analogies, showing how ideas from evolutionary biology can be transferred to a very different field and applied to a different set of species. The experiences won in this book can further qualify this kind of thinking. Accordingly, we argue that different ideas taken from evolutionary biology should not only be used to study selected actors and their relations but should be integrated and presented as a unified approach, encompassing private organizations on a broader scale. Although each individual chapter concentrates on a particular concept, each draws on and adds to the other chapters, all grappling with the factors of time, space, and species. The many interesting findings will be presented in relation to the main concepts and the various supporting concepts, and we will discuss the major lessons and how they can stimulate further research. Analogies revisited As an analytical point of departure, we argued that private organizations engaged in politics can be understood as a heterogeneous body of actors with some key defining characteristics in common. These features enable us to include and differentiate between various categories of political species. Of course, species in nature and species in political life are far apart, and some may see it as a risky or even misplaced idea to bring such deviant scholarships together, but analogies are useful and interesting tools. This approach recognizes the qualitative difference, but it also provides an opportunity to examine whether theories and concepts in evolutionary biology have potential in a quite different field. It does not presuppose that these can be used in all aspects, of course, but it makes the transfer worthwhile. Indeed, it is interesting if certain concepts from one discipline can be meaningfully translated and become valid beyond their original and primary field of investigation, and, in principle, this suggests that some overarching ideas can guide at least some parts of research. Interestingly, ideas from evolutionary biology have been used in other economic, social, and political contexts before, and, hence, our study on private organizations can be seen as part of such a larger endeavor, although it is not the primary purpose here to link up with theories on human or societal evolution. Obviously, the analogy has not been used to test whether species in nature and species in politics display some commonalities and where they differ. Given their already stark differences, the existence of certain shared attributes is in many quite ways surprising and therefore also particularly interesting, and first and foremost, an effort has therefore been made to extract these shared attributes. Thinking in terms of analogies proved helpful because there are, indeed, species in nature and in politics, or rather those we identified, which at a more abstract level share various features. Let us briefly look at some of the major ones.

Conclusion—combining conceptual insights 167 Private organizations have important historical backgrounds that help us classify them. However, they change over time, and this is accomplished through many small steps, giving evolution a gradual character. Evolution relates to these species as a whole, but evolution also concerns specific parts of their activity and comprises many structural and behavioral properties, allowing us to detail evolution. Furthermore, private organizations are critically dependent on their environments, and therefore they prevail in different spatial contexts. A range of economic, social, and political conditions permit some species to emerge and survive within smaller or larger spaces, while other species are totally absent, with no prospects for survival because the required resources needed for their existence are wanting. Finally, it is clear that private organizations engage in many interactions, both competitive and cooperative. Private organizations compete for scarce resources, but in many respects, they also enjoy the mutual benefits of collaboration, and in these processes, they find ways of adaptation. As part of this pattern, organizations belonging to the same species seem to engage in fiercer competition than those having different profiles. Accordingly, there is not just one analogy but multiple, and as political species, private organizations have many parallels with species in the living world. Of course, this does not imply that analogies are relevant in all respects because nature and politics are not identical scenes for evolution, but many interesting and, on closer inspection, also unexpected commonalities exist among them. Toward a unified approach The existing research in the social and political sciences with an ambition to apply ideas from the biological tradition has typically focused on few and insulated concepts, such as population ecology, and has thus evaded other and related concepts and not brought them together in some kind of synthesis. While such specializations are permissible in academic treatises, neither nature nor politics can be apportioned and analyzed through stand-alone concepts but must instead be conceived as integrated wholes. This study has been organized into a number of chapters highlighting specific conceptual problems, but the inclusion of several key concepts enables us to see them in combination and understand the necessity of a unified approach, akin to evolutionary theory in biology. To fully grasp each of the concepts reviewed, we must therefore pay attention to their relatedness, and we can clarify this basic argument for each of the concepts reviewed. Obviously, some of these points about the linkages of concepts may seem a bit repetitive, and in a way, it is the same story, but it is an advantage to tell it from different angles and foreground different principles.

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The evolution concept focuses on the gradual changes of species and how these are accomplished at different organizational and political levels, both above and below particular species. In order to study evolution, we also have to examine how such political species are tied to different geographies and adapted to different spaces where the conditions for their survival are optimal. In general, species are related to smaller spaces where they interact through various forms of competition and cooperation. The ecology of political species is a key factor in their evolution, and we can study how private organizations as political species depend on different kinds of resources in their environment to position themselves. However, their ecology is not simply a set of given and inalterable economic, social, and political environments because they are also subject to change. In this respect, we may observe how species mold different parts of their ecology, especially in relation to the niches they conquer and occupy. Political species are generally bound to specific geographies, and few have such a wide distribution that they operate almost without spatial limits. Private organizations are generally well adapted to these spaces characterized by favorable ecological conditions, and external actors face important barriers that make colonization difficult. However, competition may become a serious challenge to native political actors, threatening their existence, with the consequence that diversity, also recorded in species taxonomies, comes under threat. Space factors can further be studied through the niche concept. Niches are related to dimensions of space other than ecology and biogeography, and in niches, specific interactions among political species and with the related environment unfold. Niches are not empty spaces that just need to be discovered, and an active effort from private organizations is required to exploit resources. Thus, on the basis of adaptation, these species co-evolve with the niches they inhabit or seek to occupy. Competition is found among species in nature and in politics, and competition is everywhere an important driver in the evolution of species. Actors seek to avoid certain kinds of competition in order to survive, but competition comes in many forms, and cooperation is also an essential element in interactions. Competition always becomes manifest in spatial contexts, and therefore the concept is closely related to concepts in ecology and geography that can improve our understanding of competition. Adaptation is a continuous and encompassing process where private organizations as political species must respond to the different effects of competition and cooperation, but they must also adapt to changing economic, social, and political conditions in their environment. Depending on the circumstances, some species develop specific traits and gradually evolve into new species controlling specific spaces. These changes are relevant to documenting taxonomies, recording species’ diversity, and mapping the origins and relations of species. Taxonomies are important in ordering information on the many private organizations involved in politics. Through taxonomies, it is possible to establish

Conclusion—combining conceptual insights 169 how political species have evolved over time and how different kinds of private organizations are currently related. This implies that we have to define a number of structural and behavioral criteria to differentiate among actors and decide whether specific organizations belong to the same or to different species, which will reveal the specific character of competition. These are some examples of the many connections among the various concepts and issues discussed in this book. They display not only the benefits of each concept but also the accumulated value of a unified approach to private organizations. To the degree that these private entities have actually been studied in existing research, the efforts have often been spasmodic, attending to a specific concept, a particular group of actors, a limited spatial context, or a restricted period of time. Accordingly, more work is definitely needed to develop an evolutionary approach, but the first, and minimal, step is to recognize the demand for the integration of concepts into a unified approach. However, we need to consider how to bring different factors in evolution together and examine time, space, and species. Time, space, and species count For private organizations deeply rooted in the market and civil society, time and space factors are crucially important. Each of these factors can be studied separately but also in different combinations and with shifting emphasis. All organizations are necessarily tied to a certain time in history; they are also located in a specific space, and they are established at a concrete species level. At first glance, the time, space, and species levels may seem relatively straightforward, but on closer inspection, they display various complexities and demand further explanation on the basis of our findings. Let us take a closer look at these three factors in turn. First, time factors are a hallmark of evolution. Political species are not constant but undergo changes, and while existing species become extinct, new species and subspecies emerge. These processes take a very long time, and great patience is needed to follow them. We have been able to identify certain species as well as concrete private organizations that date back in time, but we have also discovered species and organizations with only brief histories. Lineages are often difficult to identify because we lack sufficient data, but studies of private organizations tend to ignore time factors, being exclusively occupied with our own time. Although we have primarily studied the current situation, we have also paid attention to the historical dimension. Through a number of examples, we have both found some clear lineages tracing some of the proximate sources and seen some of the distant roots of private organizations. If we apply a time perspective, it is, therefore, possible to detect interesting origins in some cases, whereas the backgrounds of other organizations seem rather diffuse with no identifiable

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ancestors. This problem is related to how we define the criteria for finding various roots and for recognizing important links, but it also reflects the condition that certain private organizations have multiple ancestors, emerging in various market and civil society contexts. Second, spatial factors are another feature of evolution. Research that identifies particular geographies, or other kinds of ecological space, is advantageous and provides important guidelines for the study of private organizations. Indeed, there are spaces where some species thrive with great certainty and also spaces where they are likely to be missing, and this encourages us to examine and explain different patterns. To follow the biological tradition, it can be useful to highlight various spatial contexts, from the local to the global scene, but the relevance of each of these spaces will always depend on the concrete case and the specific private organizations involved. A basic distinction can be made between domestic and international spaces because many organizations have a propensity to concentrate on and invest resources in one of these two settings, but both in the past and today, we find many cases where actors link up and combine activities. Anyhow, with the increasing internationalization and globalization of politics, space factors have become increasingly important to understand. Hence, a more refined definition of political space is demanded, and this not only includes a geographical aspect but also a diversity of institutional-, policy-, and issue-related spaces. This may advance studies of private organizations that both empirically and theoretically suffer from a strong division of labor. Third, species factors must obviously be counted in. Through evolution, all the different kinds of private organizations engaged in politics have come to belong to a large and exceedingly complex group of species, embracing such major species as political parties and associations and a host of other entities that compete and interact in mutually beneficial ways. Individual species consist of different populations, and under these we find numerous organisms, an approach that is also applicable to politics, where different species of private organizations can be understood in a somewhat similar way. The endeavor to rank species at different levels and relate them to each other is of course an important part of taxonomic work, but it also gives us some clues about their demand for resources and hence potential forms of competition and cooperation. However, we must also account for further aspects in characterizing species. In defining political species, it is relevant to draw on the various indicators, or characters, as they are called in the biological literature, that constitute private organizations, but in this regard, biological advice is not particularly helpful because cellular and molecular levels have no relevance here. Instead, we may refer to the complex pool of interests and ideas that come from the market and from civil society and shape different kinds of private organizations. Private organizations are endowed with a diversity of economic and social properties provided by these diverse pools, and they impact their structure and behavior.

Conclusion—combining conceptual insights 171 It is necessary to attend to these different factors in the study of political species: Time, place, and species factors count. It is possible to take out one group of factors and examine them carefully, but essentially, time, space, and species are interrelated in evolution, and evolutionary biology teaches us about their importance. In research on private organizations, there is unfortunately a tendency to ignore or reduce different aspects of evolution: to downgrade time factors and the strong roots of political species, to underestimate the integration of these species into different spatial contexts, or to sidestep the role of other political species in examining particular species. These are themes we will address in further detail in the following. The individual concepts and their distinct contributions Although time, space, and species factors are important, we can move a step further and point to the contributions offered by each of the concepts structuring this book. These are all essential concepts, but we have activated a number of related concepts that bring in additional ideas for operationalization, and together, core concepts and subsidiary concepts yield insights into specific evolutionary problems. These different concepts, taken from evolutionary biology and translated to a different field, are in their original tradition characterized by great precision, but concepts seem more elusive when applied to the social and political realms. In existing research, only some of these concepts have been used to study private organizations and never or rarely in combination with each other, failing to offer a full picture of such political species. In our analysis, the concept of evolution is not interchangeable with “development” and “progress” toward some ultimate goal, leading to better and stronger species or perhaps even to improved democracies. Instead, we have witnessed no end goal in species evolution, and, for the actors under scrutiny, a rich variety of smaller and accumulative changes are observable. In many ways, such political species are relatively stable, yet they are not constant. Over the course of time, private organizations may evolve into new species, or at least deviate so much from their ancestors that it is justifiable to refer to new political subspecies. It can be very difficult to identify such evolutionary changes, and it is therefore important that we are able to define, detect, and observe very small modifications in the structure and behavior of these organizations and understand their backgrounds and consequences. Everywhere is the ecology of political species of crucial importance, but it is important to stress that the concept of ecology does not only refer to population ecology and to interactions involving organizations of the same species. Indeed, a variety of factors in their environment must be observed. In the ecology of species, relations with a diversity of actors belonging to the same and different kinds of species count, but a range of economic, social, and political conditions also matter. Thus, ecologies are extremely different, and they make the life

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and survival of some private organizations possible in certain environments but exclude other organizations, the latter of which, however, may benefit from and thrive in other ecologies. As in biology, the environment is a very strong force in the selection of species. Interestingly, this selective force is taken much more seriously and is considered more intense in nature than in politics, and as a conceptual tool, ecology can be further exploited. The concept of biogeography is another key concept that is useful for examining the relations between political species and space. Also in politics, we find distinct geographic zones that are characterized by different environments, different political species, and different interactions among the pertinent private organizations. These zones are rather stable, a basic reason why we can identify such spaces at all, and they maintain important barriers that keep other species outside or at least make their entrance complicated and uncertain. Especially in a time of globalization, however, there is an inclination to ignore or misjudge the hardness of such boundaries and underestimate the factors that have shaped and sustained these spaces. In addition, there seems to be limited interest in the forces that may break down barriers and threaten existing species and environments, but more research can shed light on such changes and employ concepts in evolutionary biology to understand these processes. As a further space-related concept, the niche concept is helpful to appreciate the relations of political species with their environment, and it covers a range of minutiae, showing many different forms of interdependence. Thus, it would be incorrect to see niches merely as a spatial context in which a certain population of organizations is found or as a domain that is controlled by a given set of actors, although these aspects are also important to describe the presence of political species. We must draw some further lessons from biology and stress that niches are not freely available to all kinds of actors but only to those with a particular organizational and political profile that fit highly specific demands. In such niches, where different resources are exchanged, the interactive dimension is of primary importance. However, interactions come in variable forms, offering different kinds and degrees of benefits for the actors involved. Competition is a principal element in the relations of private organizations. However, competition is often dealt with in an undifferentiated way in studies on various kinds of rival actors, assuming that competition is just present. With inspiration from evolutionary biology, however, we can make important advances and conceptually distinguish between different patterns of intraspecific and interspecific competition. This is highly needed because private organizations have different origins and purposes, and we cannot expect the same kind and degree of competition. Moreover, we must account for other kinds of relations among political species because not all relations are necessarily competitive. Cooperation is also a defining feature of many interactions, and a number of concepts in evolutionary biology, not already applied, can bring us additional insights onto private organizations. Thus, it is possible to distinguish

Conclusion—combining conceptual insights 173 between more or less intense forms of cooperation involving occasional or stable interactions. A perennial element in evolution is the adaptation of political species to complex environments. In line with evolutionary thinking, adaptation is generally accomplished through a series of small steps, an important lesson for the study of private organizations, but still, this gradualness must be specified, and conceptual tools to identify and examine adaptation demand further elaboration. The adaptation of species refers to different aspects of structure and behavior in private organizations, but because these political species are very different, we will have to make different kinds of observations. Eventually, the character of adaptation can help us determine the possible emergence of new species, but many changes do not have this accumulating effect. As a result of long-term adaptation, many other phenomena can be observed, including the avoidance of detection and the deception of other actors, but too little attention has been directed toward these interesting phenomena in research on private organizations. It is highly useful to establish taxonomies embracing the diversity of private organizations, but we clearly lack taxonomies that not only record this vast array of organizations but also enable us to identify their roots and determine their complex relations. A variety of private organizations must necessarily be dealt with, not just selected fragments. Different categories of private organizations tend to be treated as rather disparate entities that draw attention in their own right and whose relatedness tends to be sidelined. In taxonomies, however, we are able to show how organizations are informed by the goals and traditions of their ancestors and how they currently represent different concerns in the market and civil society from which they emerge. The development of such taxonomies is complicated, and we need to both trace the histories of the organizations and define a number of key properties that characterize these species. Each of the core concepts can help us analyze the diversity of private organizations but also bring additional insights in relation to existing scholarship and thus add to the state of the art. Although we can draw on each of them in turn, using them to analyze particular organizations’ relations and environments, we will definitely gain from jointly activating at least some of them. In fact, this seems unavoidable because the concepts are so intrinsically related. It is therefore evident that the different benefits of evolutionary thinking can be formulated in even more general terms, and this provides an opportunity to expand the arguments already developed. The diversity of roots in market and civil society In politics, we find many different kinds of private organizations, here treated as a variety of political species. We observe their initiatives and follow their strategies in political life, sometimes even on a daily basis, but there is a risk that we concentrate on a few traits and become occupied with their outward appearance

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alone. This is also one of the classical dangers in the study of species in nature, where scholars and naturalists back in time grouped bird species according to such features as the size of their bills, the colorations of their feathers, or other conspicuous features but failed to establish more solid criteria for defining commonalities and differences among species. This is also a challenge in the study of private organizations, where their deeper roots tend to be forgotten. Roots, however, can tell us important things about the perspectives they are likely to bring into different political contexts. These can be identified by tracing the ancestral organizations and detecting their emergence in broader economic and social pools of interests, practices, and traditions. All organizations are in one way or another related to this material reservoir and never decoupled from such pools, just living a life of their own, uncommitted to these conditions, but it is a complicated exercise to locate these connections. They will, however, provide us with greater insights into their diversity and show that private organizations have different opportunities to engage in politics. We defined two principal pools, namely market and civil society, but it is also clear that these have to be subdivided into a further number of categories, and without recognizing these distinctions, we are unable to appreciate the importance of their roots. Mindful of the different backgrounds of private organizations, we may add a number of basic features that help us classify them. It is a vital experience in the study of species in nature that classification can never be done on the basis of a single character alone, and, therefore, we need a series of characters to define and distinguish among species, an experience that is also useful in our context. To mention a few examples, we cannot categorize political species only according to such characters as their formal organization, their resources, their policy focus, or their preferred strategy, but we have to include and evaluate different characters to define species. Anchored in the pools of market and civil society, many different species of private organizations are active in politics, but with huge variations across time and space. Today, a vast number of concrete actors are involved, and it can be difficult to record all these organizations that exhibit considerable variation in terms of organizational formats and disposal of resources. Interestingly, they also display variation with regard to their institutional environment. While some have close relations with other actors, including public authorities, other organizations have fewer and less strong relations with such bodies in politics. This is just a brief recapitulation of some of their basic characters, but all in all, these leave the impression of a huge diversity among private organizations. This diversity definitely needs to be systematized, preferably with the same zest as in the biological tradition, and a huge task lies in front of us. However, an important question is whether this diversity also reflects a kind of pluralism. This is a much broader question that cannot be answered on the basis of our

Conclusion—combining conceptual insights 175 study, which has another purpose, but the question gives rise to some reflections. The sheer number of concrete actors and their distribution across different species display significant diversity, but we should be very careful about the conclusions we can draw from this because diversity (the presence of many and varied actors) is not identical with pluralism (the distribution of opportunities and influence). It is worth recalling that over time, some linages have become strong and highly diversified, while others are represented by only a very few species. Relatedly, some species are relatively diversified, eventually assuming the character of polytypic species. Other species, however, are not strongly diversified and are therefore referred to as monotypic species. Interestingly, many of these patterns are also present in politics and in relation to private organizations and must be considered. Furthermore, we should remember that private organizations also play very different roles, and while some species are strongly represented, others are present only in small numbers. This may have the effect of making some species demand significant resources and dominate a given environment, making survival harder or perhaps even impossible for other species. Accordingly, there is no “level playing field.” Besides the variable ancestries and diversity of political species, we must pay attention to their environments and again draw on experiences from across the different concepts. Political environments, whether large geographic zones or small niches, are all very important in the lives of private organizations; they are active in shaping the environment, and they depend on it. Although the environment poses different challenges to different species, there are some conditions in the environment that are common for all political species inhabiting a given space and, therefore, some general lessons to be drawn. An overriding feature is that the environment selects the species. Many discrete forces in the environment, generated over evolutionary time, are active in these processes. We know from biology that nature is not subject to any kind of grand design, and also in politics, the environment often works in a more anonymous way, establishing a set of economic, social, and political conditions that in the short or long run, however, have a crucial impact on the life and survival of different kinds of private organizations. Concomitant with these processes, it is possible to detect some deliberate actions taken by key actors in the environment of private organizations and that influence their work. In politics, governments and other public authorities may have a preference for certain interests or for certain actors, but such intentional actions do not contradict these more general conditions in their environment. Thus, we have seen that certain kinds of private organizations have flourished in particular times in history when environments have been especially favorable and have declined or perished in other periods. The distribution of political species also varies across geographic zones, reflecting broader conditions in the environment. In the study of politics and of private organizations, there seems,

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however, to be less explicit recognition of the intimate relationship between species and their environment than in biology, where it is basic knowledge that all species vary with their environment. One of the important features of both past and contemporary societies is the foundational role of the economy, and specifically, of markets, essential to sustain growth and welfare but also to uphold social and political order in many different historical settings. As we have seen, a rich diversity of private organizations also have their roots in the market and in the principles of private enterprise. It would therefore be very surprising if the economic, social, and political environments did not select those private organizations that mirror such values, interests, and practices, and it would be equally strange if such organizations would not try to mold their environments, and these undertakings were not successful. Private organizations rooted in civil society also have significant positions, but they tend to reflect other kinds of preferences and are confronted with other environments. Their existence tends to be more precarious, however, than organizations with a background in the economy. Indeed, organizations rooted in private enterprise seem to have prospered through large parts of history, and they also thrive in times and in societies where the free formation of civil society organizations has been heavily restricted because political systems have been deprived of democratic rules and values. Challenges ahead Evolutionary biology is an important source of inspiration for the study of private organizations, and we have drawn on this tradition and translated various key concepts to a different field of investigation. Indeed, it is necessary to consult a variety of concepts because one concept, if not supported by others, cannot provide sufficient assistance. The cases used to illustrate the value of this approach have clearly shown its relevance, but more work is needed to advance this in the future. The ambition is not to replace all the available approaches to the study of private organizations, but to add evolutionary thinking to existing research. In this future endeavor, however, some obstacles lie in our way, and although this study has tried to remove some of them, they will no doubt remain there for a considerable time. We have dealt with a number of private organizations and also discussed many concrete cases in history and in contemporary societies. However, a continuous effort to define and redefine the diverse community of private organizations is required. As we know, species in nature are not constant entities but change over evolutionary time, and this also applies to political species. We also have to consider whether such organizations are actually involved in political life and, in which sense, they can be considered political species proper.

Conclusion—combining conceptual insights 177 Evolutionary thinking in biology has often been applied to certain aspects of politics, but research has been concerned either with the biological background of human political behavior from a micro perspective or with evolution at the level of societies from a macro perspective. These strands of research tend to restrict the evolutionary perspective to one of these two units and hold these applications to be the most genuine, but the potential of evolutionary thinking is much greater and also embraces the meso perspective on private organizations. There are also different obstacles among scholars in the social and political sciences. Misgivings can be expressed in both the broader community and raise more concrete doubts in the group of researchers concerned with private organizations. This detachment can embrace everything from a lazy lack of interest to an open resistance to the basic idea of bringing this thinking into the study of politics, but new advances by scholars specialized in different kinds of private organizations can change this situation. Finally, coordination problems face us, but they can be overcome. Many studies on private organizations often use a conceptual language developed in particular cultures and are therefore not generic, although this is sometimes claimed or taken for granted. When translated, concepts from evolutionary biology, however, have a clear advantage, offering a more neutral language and accommodating different kinds of experiences. This can also be helpful to solve other challenges. Thus, the different species of private organizations include a variety of actors, and these are typically studied in research communities and disciplines that specialize in a particular species and do not encompass related species. In fact, certain species may be given an elevated status. However, evolutionary thinking teaches us that no one species is superior to another; they just have different properties and occupy different roles. These principles are important to follow and encourage stronger coordination among specialists when analyzing the evolution and diversity of private organizations in politics.

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Index

Note: Page numbers in italics indicate a figure and page numbers in bold indicate a table on the corresponding page. abiotic environments 42–43, 44, 45 Accenture 99 accounting firm 155 activist environmental organizations, niche(s) and 95–96, 100 adaptation 123–143, 168; applications of 135–141; assessment of 125; biological perspectives 124–129; co-adaptation concept 126, 129, 138; convergence/divergence and 132; crypsis and 128–129, 132, 134, 140–141, 142–143; cryptic species and 128; described 125; embedded 137–138; generalists and 96; instant 135–137; interactions and 126; interest groups and 131; long-term 137–138; mimicry and 126–128, 127, 129, 131–132, 133–134, 138–140; in nature 123; non-adaptation 125; overview of 123–124; of political species 131, 138–140, 142, 173; pre-adaptation 125; private organizations and 123–124, 130, 131, 141–142; reflections/translations of 129–134; short-term 135–137; specialists and 128; species and 64, 123, 126; time dimension of 126, 129, 134, 142 adaptation in nature 123 Africa, consumer associations in 35 alien species 65 Amnesty International 37, 115 analogy 10–11, 19, 58, 69, 166–167 Argentina, Peronist movement in 78–79, 80

asexual reproduction, biological species and 8 Asia, consumer associations in 35 associations: adaptation and 130–132; business 55–56; competition and 110–111; consumer 35; EU-based 70; niche concept and 89; taxonomies of 151, 155; see also interest groups Atlantic Treaty Association (ATA) 120 Australia: business associations 56; as immigration country 115; political party mimicry in 139–140 Australian Federation of Employers and Industries (AFEI) 115 Australian Institute of International Affairs (AIIA) 119–120 Australian Labor Party 139 Australian Medical Association (AMA) 94 Austria, chamber membership in 54–55 band and clan 155 barriers: biogeography 65–66, 75–76, 80; in Japan 75–76; in nature 65–66; political species and 75–76 Big 4 (Deloitte, KPMG, PwC, and EY) 162, 164 biogeography 61–80; applications of 73–79; barriers 65–66, 75–76, 80; biological perspectives 62–68; concept, described 61, 172; diversity 66; endemic species 65, 66, 67, 78–79, 80; evolutionary biology and 62–64; invasive species 65, 71, 72, 76–78, 80; islands 66; isolation 66,

202

Index

71; organizational distribution patterns 73–74, 80; overview of 61–62; reflections/translations of 68–72; regions map 63; space and 63, 63–64, 68–69, 72; species dispersal ability 64, 66–67; subspecies 71 biological species 7–10; asexual reproduction and 8; definition criteria of 8–10; environment adaptations and 9; genetic background and 8–9 biology: discipline of 1; evolutionary 1–2; investigation levels of 2–7; species concept 7–10 biopolitics 81n1 biotic environments 42–43 brotherhoods 141 business associations, ecology and 55–56 Business at OECD 115 Canada 96 Canadian Institute of International Affairs (CIIA) 119 Canons Regular of Saint Augustine 158 cartel 155 Catholicism: civil society organizations and 57, 59; taxonomies of 157–158; unions and 116 Center for Public Integrity (CPI) 161 Central European University 77 chambers 54–55, 155 characters, taxonomy 43, 86, 104–107, 108, 111, 115, 120, 143n4, 149, 150, 153, 160–163, 173 Chatham House 99 Christianity, civil society organizations and 57 civilizations 4, 5, 28, 75, 109 civil society interests of private organizations 13 civil society organizations: corporatization of 37; evolution and 36–38; features of 37; religious confraternities 56–58; taxonomies of 154–156, 155 cladogram 148 classification, taxonomy 144, 146–147 client politics 164n2 clubs 121, 155; political 1; social 73, 74 co-adaptation concept 126, 129, 138 co-evolution 17, 18, 25; adaptation and 126; civil-society interests/values and 59; short-term/long-term, of species 85 collective action theory 109

community ecology 59–60n1 competition 102–122, 168; applications of 113–120; biological perspectives of 103–108, 121–122; cooperation and 107, 119–121, 172–173; coordination of interests and 110–111; described 102; direct 104, 105, 113, 114–115, 121; human rights organizations and 114–115; indirect 104, 105, 113, 114–115, 121; interactions and 106–107, 113; interspecific 105, 111, 113, 117–119, 121; intraspecific 105, 113, 115–117, 121; at macro level 109–110; at meso level 110; at micro level 109; mutualism 107; non-symbiotic relations and 107–108, 119; overview of 102–103; political parties and 111–112, 114–115, 118, 120, 121–122; private organizations and 112, 117–119, 121, 172; reflections/translations of 108–113; selection and 103–104; symbiosis and 107–108; symbiotic relations and 107–108, 119; trade unions and 114–115; unions and 115–117 confraternities 57, 155 Confraternity of Santa Maria della Misericordia 57–58, 59 Conservative Party (UK) 118 consulting firms 14, 74, 99, 155 consumer associations 35, 155 consumer movement: evolution of 35–36; historical roots of 35 Consumers International (CI) 35–36 convergence, adaptation and 132 convergent evolution 33, 39n2, 128, 132 cooperation, competition and 107, 119–121, 172–173 coordination of interests, competition and 110–111 corporatism 137–138 corporatization of civil society 37 cosmopolitan species 61, 66, 75 Costa Rica, political parties in as single species 53, 58–59 Council for International Organizations of Medical Sciences (CIOMS) 94 Council of Foreign Relations (CFR) (US) 119 crypsis: adaptation and 132, 142–143; in biology 128; brotherhoods and

Index 140–141; described 134; survival and 128–129; time and 134 cryptic species 128 culture(s) 5, 7, 14, 109; democratic 37; evolution of 4, 28, 130; government role in 54; pluralist, of policymaking 137; political species and 75; Roman Catholic 57 Darwin, Charles 2, 62, 106, 122n1, 146, 148; tree of life 149 Dawkins, Richard 143n2 dendrogram 146–147, 148 direct competition 104, 105, 113, 114–115, 121 divergence, adaptation and 132 divergent evolution 25–26 diversity 19n4; biogeography and 66 domain 88 domestic politics 152 downward classification 146–147 dupes 127 ecology 40–59, 168; applications for 51–58; biogeography and 64; biological perspectives of 41–46; biotic/abiotic factors 42–44; business associations application 55–56; ecosystem concept and 41–42; environment operations and 51; evolutionary 1; habitat and 25, 64–65, 83–84, 85; macro 42; micro 42; multiple-species populations application 53–55; origin of concept 41; overview of 40–41; population 47, 48; religious confraternities application 56–58; resources and 41–42, 44–46, 49, 54, 55; single-species populations application 52–53; space factors of 40, 41, 43, 48–49, 51, 53, 55; species concept and 50, 50–51; translation of ideas, evaluating 46–51 economic man 109 ecosystem 41–42; niche and 83 elimination 104 embedded adaptation 137–138 employee/consumer organizations 154, 155 employer/producer organizations 154, 155 endemic species 65, 66, 67, 71, 72, 78–79, 80

203

endemism in politics 78; Peronist movement in Argentina as 78–79, 80 Engels, Friedrich 27 entrepreneurial politics 164n2 estate 155 EU institutions 70 European associations: evolutionary theory and 33–34; formation of 34 European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) 33 European Economic Community (EEC) 33, 34 Europe consumer associations 35 evolution 20–39, 168; applications of 31–38; biological perspectives of 21–26; civil society organizations and 36–38; co-evolution 17, 18, 25, 59, 85, 126; of consumer movement 35–36; convergent 33, 128, 132; divergent 25–26; European associations and 33–34; gradual, over extended time frames 32–33; gradualism of 23, 25–26, 27, 135; guilds and 32–33; horizontal dimension of 27–28; introduction to 17; level factor of 26, 30, 30–31; levels and partial changes in 36–38; macro level of 24–25, 26, 28, 30, 31; meso level of 12, 21; micro level of 24, 25–26, 28, 29, 30, 31; overview of 20–21; of private actors in political life 26–27, 29–30, 173; selection and 22, 24; speed and 22–23, 26; time factor of 26, 30, 30–31; vertical dimension of 28–29 evolutionary biology 1; biogeography and 62–64; challenges ahead for 176–177; described 2; ecology and 58; isolation and 66; systematics and 146; taxonomy and 154; translation challenges in 10–12; see also evolution evolutionary ecology 1 evolutionary institutionalism 5 evolutionary theory: conflicting versions/ interpretations of 2–3; macro approaches to 4–5; meso approaches to 5–6; micro approaches to 3–4; political parties and 30, 30–31; weaknesses in 6 exaptation 125 exploitation competition 104

204

Index

Fernández de Kirchner, Cristina 79 Fidesz political party 77 fitness 2 foundations 49, 54, 73, 77, 155 France: employer organizations 118; trade union belief and value systems in 116–117 Freemasons 141 French Confederation of Christian Workers 117 French Democratic Confederation of Labour 117 full species 148 fundamental niche 89 game theory 109 General Confederation of Labor (France) 116–117 General Confederation of Labor-Workers’ Force 117 generalist niche 84–85, 87, 91 genetics 3–4; biological species and 8–9 Germany employer organizations 118 Global Solar Council (GSC) 97 God 146 gradualism 23, 25–26, 27, 135 Greenpeace 37, 96, 100 guilds 31, 155; described 32; ecology and 57; evolutionary theory and 32–33 habitat: ecology and 25, 64–65; niche and 83–84, 85 historical institutionalism 5 human rights organizations, competition and 114–115 Hungary: employer organizations 118; Open Society Foundations and 77–78 indirect competition 104, 105, 113, 114– 115, 121 instant adaptation 135–137 institutionalism 46; evolutionary 5; historical 5, 28, 69, 130 interactions: adaptation and 126; competition and 106–107, 113 interest groups: adaptation and 131–132; competition and 110–112; ecological concepts and 47–48; EU-based 70; evolutionary theory and 33, 35; niche concepts and 89, 90; politics 164n2; taxonomies of 146, 151–152, 153, 155; see also associations

interference competition 104 International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) 136 International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, Inc. (ICIJ) 161, 164 International Democrat Union (IDU) 78 international non-governmental organizations (INGOs) 153 interspecific competition 105, 111, 113, 117–119, 121 intraspecific competition 105, 113, 115–117, 121 invasive species 65, 71, 72, 76–78, 80 islands, isolation and evolutionary biology on 66 isolation, biogeography and 66, 71 isomorphic mimicry 131–132 Italy, trade union belief and value systems in 116–117 Japan: barriers role in 75–76; business associations 56; Keidanren 138 Japan Business Federation 76, 138 Keidanren 138 knowledge-based organizations, taxonomies of 151, 155, 160 labor movement 35, 155 Lamarck 146 Latin America: Catholicism and 57; civil society organizations, Catholic-based 74; consumer associations 35; trade union belief and value systems in 116–117 law firm 155 liberal corporatism 137 Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) 76 Liberal/National Coalition, Australia 139 Linneaus 145–146, 147 lobbying 140 lodge see club long-term adaptation 137–138 macro approaches to evolutionary theory 4–5, 24–25, 26, 28, 30, 31, 39n1 macro level competition 109–110 mafia organizations 141, 143 majoritarian politics 164n2 management theories 6 manufacturer 155

Index market-based organizations, taxonomies of 154–156, 155 market economy ecologies 59, 137–138 Marx, Karl 27 meme concept 143n2 merchant 155 meso approaches to evolutionary theory 5–6, 12, 21, 39n1 meso level competition 110 Metaverse 98–99, 100 Mexico employer organizations 118 micro approaches to evolutionary theory 3–4, 24, 25–26, 28, 29, 30, 31, 39n1 micro level competition 109 Mill, John Stuart 109 mimetic isomorphism 131 mimicry: adaptation and 126–128, 127, 138–140; biological approaches to 132–133; described 128, 129, 134; political parties and 138–140, 142; strategic advantages of 127; time and 133, 134 mimics 128 mission 155 models 127 monotypic species 147 morphological traits 150 mosaic evolution 37–38 multi-species populations: chambers and 54–55; ecology and 53–55; foundations and 54; inclusion issues with 54 mutualism 122n3; adaptation and 137–138; competition and 107 native species 65, 71, 72 NATO 120 natural selection 103 nature, adaptation in 123 neo-biota 65 network(s) 46, 76, 88; policy 48 New Zealand employer organizations 118 niche construction 87, 90 niche(s) 82–100, 168; activist environmental organizations and 95–96, 100; applications of 93–99; biological approaches to 83–88; concept 172; construction 87, 90; control of, professional societies and 93–95; described 82; fundamental 89;

205

generalist 84–85, 87, 91; organization theory and 89–91; overlapping 86–87, 90, 98–99; overview of 82–83; private organizations and 90–92, 92, 98–99, 100; professional societies and control of 93–95, 100; realized 86, 89; reflections/translations of 88–92; space and 82, 83, 85, 88–89, 92; specialist 84, 87, 90, 91, 100; species study and 84, 84–85, 87–88, 99, 100; sustainable energy organizations and 96–98; width 91 Nippon Kaigi 76 non-adaptation 125 non-decision-making 133 non-governmental organizations 152 non-market organizations 36, 152 non-profit organizations 36, 152 non-state: actors 152, 153; described 153 non-symbiotic relations, competition and 107–108, 119 North America consumer associations 35 North Western Europe trade unions 74 Ocalenie Foundation 136 oceans as biogeography barrier 66 Offshore Leaks Database (ICIJ) 161 On the Origin of Species (Darwin) 146 Open Society Foundations (OSF) 77, 80 Order of St. Benedict 158 organizational demographies 47 organizational distribution patterns 73–74, 80 organizational field 88 Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) 13, 116, 118; business at 56 organizations: activist environmental 95–96, 100; Catholic-based civil society, in Latin America 74; civil society 36–38, 57, 59; employer, in France 118; employer, in Germany 118; employer, in Hungary 118; employer, in Mexico 118; employer, in New Zealand 118; employer, in Spain 118; employer, in Turkey 118; human rights 114–115; knowledge-based 151, 160; mafia 141, 143; marketbased 154–156; non-governmental 152; non-profit 36, 152; private, as political parties 12–15; private, as political species 12–15, 61; private

206

Index

actors and 13–14; refugee, short-term adaptation and 135–137; sustainable energy 96–98; transnational 152, 153; whistleblower 160–161, 164; see also private organizations organization theory 6; niche(s) and 89–91 overlapping niche(s) 86–87, 90, 98–99 pairwise interactions 106 Partido Justicialista (PJ) 79 Peron, Juan 78–79 Peronist movement 78–79, 80 philanthropic foundations 73–74 phylogenetic tree 64, 147–148 phylogram 147, 148 pluralism 52–53, 137–138, 174–175 policy field 88 Polish Humanitarian Action 136 Polish Solidarność 159, 163 political geography 81n1 political parties: adaptation and 131–132; barriers and 80; competition and 111–112, 114–115, 118, 120, 121–122; defining 152; evolution theory and 30, 30–31; international coordination with like-minded parties 71, 77; Metaverse and 99; mimicry and 138–140, 142; as private entities 13–14; private organizations as 1, 12–15, 79, 91; as single-species populations 52–53, 58– 59; study of 14, 28–29, 109; taxonomies of 151–152, 155, 158–160, 163 political species 168; adaptation and 131, 138–140, 142; barriers 75–76; biological-geographical ideas applied to 61–62, 66, 71–72, 72; consumer movement and 35–36, 155; diversity of 12–15; ecology and 47–51, 50; ecosystem concept and 42–43; endemism and 78–79; European associations as 33–34; evolution of 20, 22, 25–26, 28–31, 30; generalists and specialists in 91; invasive species and 76–78; market organizations and 55–56; private organizations as 7, 8, 10–16, 16, 40, 61; in United States and Costa Rica 52–53 political systems 10, 20, 48, 75; crypsis and 140; endemism and 78; Japanese 76; social movements and 158–160 polytypic species 147 population ecology 47, 48

pre-adaptation 125 private entities, political parties as 13–14 private organizations: adaptation and 123–124, 130, 131, 141–142; analogies of 166–167; barriers and 66; change and 7; competition and 112, 117–119, 121; conceptual variations of 14–15; distinguishing 11–12; with domestic origins 71; ecology concept and 48–49; embeddedness of, biogeography and 64; endemic species and 78–79; European organizations and 34; evolution of 6–7 (see also evolution); geography role in 61–62; interrelationships between, as political species, time, and space 15–16, 16, 169–171; market/civil society interests of 13, 173–176; niche(s) and 90–92, 92, 98–99, 100; as political species 12–15, 61; properties of, defining 150; roots and 174; as secretive 140–141; short-term adaptation and 135–137; taxonomies of 151–157, 155; types of 1 professional services corporations 155, 161–163 professional societies, niche control and 93–95, 155 public institutions, taxonomies of 155 quiet politics 133 realized niche(s) 86, 89 Refugee Council of Australia 115 refugee organizations, short-term adaptation and 135–137 Refugee Support (RS) 136 regulatory politics 88 religious confraternities, civil society and 56–58 religious organizations 154, 155 reproductive isolation 71 retention 19n1 rooted trees 148, 164n3 roots: diversity of, in market and civil society 173–176; taxonomy 148 Rostow, Walt 27 Royal Institute of International Affairs (UK) 119

Index Save the Children 37 secretive species 128; see also crypsis sector 88 secular organizations 154, 155 selection 2; of the best 104; competition and 103–104 self-regulators 155 shared characters 43 short-term adaptation 135–137 single-species population 43; population ecology and 52–53 Smith, Adam 109 social clubs 73 social Darwinism 2 Socialist International (SI) 78 social media 155 social movements 89, 152–153, 155, 158–160, 163–164 social species 4 sociobiology 3–4 Solidaires Unitaires Democratiques (SUD) 117 Solidarność 159, 163 Soros, George 77 space 168; biogeography and 63, 63–64, 68–69, 72; concept 172; evolution and 170; niche(s) and 82, 83, 85, 88–89, 92; see also niche Spain: employer organizations 118; trade union belief and value systems in 116–117 specialist: adaptation and 128; niche(s) and 84, 87, 90, 91, 100 species: abiotic view of 44–45; abundance of 67; adaptation and 64, 123, 125–126; in biology 7–10; cosmopolitan 61, 66; dispersal ability of 64, 66–67; ecology and 50, 50–51; endemic 65, 66, 67, 78–79; evolution and 170–171; invasive 65; relatedness of 127; shared characters and 43; single-species population 43; study, niche(s) and 84, 84–85, 87–88, 99, 100; water as abiotic factor in 44, 45; see also biogeography state corporatism 137 structural power 133 subspecies 71, 147 subsystem 88 survival 2 sustainable energy organizations, niche(s) and 96–98

207

symbiosis, competition and 107–108 symbiotic relations, competition and 107–108, 119 systematics 146 taxa 145, 147 tax justice NGOs 36 taxonomy 144–164, 168–169; applications of 156–163; biological approaches to 145–150; characters 149, 150; cladogram 148; classification 144, 146–147; clear origins 158–160; dendrogram 146–147, 148; described 144, 146; diffuse origins/characters 161–163; of groups above species level 154–156; military order 155; multiple origins/characters 160–161; overview of 144–145; phylogenetic tree 64, 147–148; phylogram 147, 148; of political parties 151–152, 158–160, 163; of private organizations 151–157, 155, 173; professional services corporations 155, 161–163; reflections/translations of 151–156; religious orders, church and 155, 157–158; roots 148; single origin of multiple species 157–158; from social movement to political parties 155, 158–160; time dimension and 150; traits 150; whistleblower organizations 160–161 think tanks, taxonomies of 151, 155, 160, 164 time: adaptation and 126, 129, 134, 142; phylogeny and 147; private organizations and 169–170; taxonomies and 150 trade unions 74, 155; competition and 114–115 trading company 155 traditions, guild 32–33 traits 150 translation in evolutionary biology 10–12 transnational organizations 152, 153 Treaty of Rome 33 Turkey employer organizations 118 unions, competition and 115–117 United Kingdom: consulting firms 74; employer organizations 118; guilds and 32; political party mimicry in 139

208

Index

United Nations (UN) 94 United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) 136 United States: consulting firms 74; foundations in 54; as immigration country 115; philanthropic foundations 73–74; political parties in, as single species 52–53, 58–59; political party mimicry in 139

unrooted trees 148, 164n3 upward classification 146 Wallace, Alfred 62–63 whistleblower organizations 160–161, 164 width, niche 91 World Health Organization (WHO) 94 World Medical Association (WMA) 94