Henning Hillmann

Mediation in Multiple Networks: Elite Mobilization before the English Civil War

Navigating political action typically requires coalition building across different interest groups. Because members represent divergent interests and are embedded in different networks, however, alliance formation is difficult. In this article, I consider how elites rely on political brokerage to overcome these divisions and form successful coalitions, with successful organization of the parliamentary opposition to the king before the English Civil War as a case in point. Supporting quantitative evidence comes from rich network data on the business, kinship, and political affiliations among 346 political and mercantile elites. Rather than the mere presence of mediator positions, I argue that effective brokerage of mobilizing alliances between interest groups requires political mediators who are equally affiliated with these diverse networks. Successful brokerage is conditional on both their structural position between groups and the diversity of ties that compose their personal networks. The results demonstrate that new merchant elites who were engaged in the American colonial trades acted as political mediators and facilitated the formation of a parliamentary opposition strong enough to defeat the royalist forces in London.

Localism and the Limits of Political Brokerage: Evidence from Revolutionary Vermont1

Previous research argues that political brokers between rival factions play a critical role in state centralization because they help national state builders to undermine local autonomy. In contrast, this article demonstrates how coordinator elites who forge relationships within communal networks act as a counterweight to more cosmopolitan brokers, representing local interests. Evidence from new archival data on credit networks and political mobilization in Revolutionary Vermont shows that such local powerholders used their strategic position in economic networks to gain influential political offices. Moreover, coordinators strengthened local political factions that linked to national politics without eroding the interests of local communities.

Fragmented Networks and Entrepreneurship in Late Imperial Russia

Emergent economies suffer from underdeveloped market infrastructures and insufficient public institutions to enforce contract commitments and property rights. Informal reputation-based arrangements may substitute for government enforcement, but they require close-knit networks that enable monitoring. Economic development also requires access to capital, information, and other resources, which is enabled by wide-reaching and diverse networks and not by closure. How is entrepreneurship possible given these conflicting demands? In this article, the authors examine how partnership networks and reputation channel the mobilization of capital for new enterprises, using quantitative information on 4,172 corporate partnerships during the industrialization of late imperial Russia (1869–1913). They find that reputation is locally effective in small and homogeneous network components. By contrast, founders in the largest components that form the network core raise more capital from investors but benefit less from reputation and more from brokerage opportunities and ties that reach diverse communities.

Overseas Trade and the Decline of Privateering

Using a novel data set on 2,483 British privateering cruises, we show that state-licensed raiding of commercial vessels was a popular and flourishing business among merchants that took a serious toll on enemy trade from 1689 to 1815. Why, then, did privateering merchants gradually turn away from these profitable endeavors? We show that the expansion of overseas trade increased the opportunity costs for merchants and resulted in the decline of privateering. Our findings document that the decline of privateering had as much to do with an expanding maritime economy as with the rising naval power of the British state.

A Closed Elite? Bristol’s Society of Merchant Venturers and the Abolition of Slave Trading

Why, despite clear economic incentives, did eighteenth-century slave traders fail to defend their business interests against the abolition campaign? We focus on the outport of Bristol as a case in point. Our main argument is that slave traders lacked an organizational basis to translate their economic interests into political influence. Supporting evidence from merchant networks over the 1698–1807 period shows that the Society of Merchant Venturers offered such an organizational site for collective political action. Members of this chartered company controlled much of Bristol’s seaborne commerce and held chief elective offices in the municipal government. However, the Society evolved into an organization that represented the interests of a closed elite. High barriers to entry prevented the slave traders from using the Society as a vehicle for political mobilization. Social cohesion among slave traders outside the chartered company hinged on centrally positioned brokers. Yet the broker positions were held by the few merchants who became members of the Society, and who eventually ceased their engagement in slave trading. The result was a fragmented network that undermined the slave traders’ concerted efforts to mobilize against the political pressure of the abolitionist movement.

Structural Role Complementarity in Entrepreneurial Teams

To refine the understanding of the social network characteristics of entrepreneurial teams, we present a new construct: structural role complementarity. In particular, we examine the variation between team members’ respective abilities to act as network brokers. Based on the cofounding networks of 9,461 entrepreneurs and 2,446 large-scale industrial enterprises over 45 years in Russia’s emerging economy (1869–1913), our findings show that variation among team members’ brokering ability significantly predicts the starting capital raised by their firm. The effect is moderated by the team’s average brokering potential. When both the team’s average and variation in brokering potential is high, firms raise greater starting capital. By using multiple membership models, we demonstrate that greater starting capital is largely attributable to team factors rather than the attributes of the individual team members. We also take advantage of discriminatory laws that were passed in 1887 in an instrumental variable ana...

RELATIONAL COUNTERBALANCES TO ECONOMIC ENDOGAMY: A THEORY AND A HISTORICAL EXAMPLE.

We question the tenet that, when unchecked by external forces or rational interests, salient group divisions lead to in-group economic transaction preferences. Members of conflicting groups can sim...