Repression can convert a political rival’s exclusion into a durable power network

Evidence

A fascinating, if implicit, use of this view of path dependence as reactive sequence is embedded in John Padget and Christopher Ansell’s social network-based research on the rise of the Medici to prominence in fifteenth-century Florence (Padget and Ansell, 1993). Padget and Ansell describe how, through the unplanned creation of a social network with a specific configuration, the Medici were able to have a ‘robust action’ and be seen by both their ‘patricians’ and their ‘new men’ allies as representing their contradicting social ideals and interests. The Medici’s social network, it is argued, was created as a reaction to the oligarchs’ attempt to punish the Medici for their behavior in a past revolt. First, the oligarchs prevented the Medici from marrying with certain high-status families (a necessity for keeping status and influence in Florence). Second, the oligarchs attempted to strengthen their power in the Medici’s own neighborhoods. This caused the Medici to counteract by following a certain pattern of marriage and economic patronism that gave rise to their specific social network. The growth in power of the Medici forced the oligarchs to use more direct methods to try to dispose of the Medici, who in turn used their social capital by mobilizing their social network, ending the sequence with the Medici ruling Florence. — Georg Schreyögg and Jörg Sydow, The Hidden Dynamics of Path Dependence, 103

Categorization

• XREF: Echoes the Padgett-Ansell robust-action literature and general social-network accounts of Medici Florence. — connects to: State repression of dissent solidifies community solidarity and legitimates even lethal internal enforcement — Charles Tilly, Regimes and Repertoires, 539
• STORYSTEM: A dynasty story told as a chain of reactions: every attempt to squash a family feeds the network that eventually rules the city.