Interlocking institutions and elite networks in democratic organizations. Social network analysis of elected representatives in massive membership organizations in the greater Helsinki region

Abstract

Participation in organizational democracy is viewed in widely different ways: both positively, as schools of democracy, and more negatively, as elite pools of democracy. However, most of the research on this topic has focused on participation in voluntary associations. This paper looks beyond the classic understanding of association democracy to explore the democratic governance in a church, a consumer cooperative, and in student organizations, and examines their links to Helsinki region city councils and parliamentary politics. Using public access data, we created a database of 4141 people to map how these democratic organizations connect with institutional democracy through a social network of democratically elected representatives. Drawing on social network analysis and the literature on voluntary associations, our study revealed a tightly interlocked interorganizational network and an interpersonal network of democratic elites in Finnish society.