Connecting the Micro and Macro in Institutional Theory: Structural Mechanisms and the Field Development of Animal Welfare in the United States

Abstract

This thesis examines the field development of animal welfare in the United States (US). Empirically, it draws on three different analytical frameworks: a historical process analysis of the first American wild bird protection organization in the progressive era; network and event history analyses of animal lawsuits from 1865 to 2010; and event sequence and count analyses of animal-related legislation between 1698 and 2008. Theoretically, the thesis focuses upon one of the key questions facing institutional theory: what are the mechanisms and processes through which micro-level1 action and macro-level phenomena are connected? To answer this question, this thesis attends specifically to (1) the processes that connect the micro-level action and macro-level institutions, and (2) two structural mechanisms that are not a sum of micro-level action, but lead to macro-level phenomena. This macro-level phenomenon is the development of the animal welfare field. The findings of this thesis advance current understanding of how micro-level action and macro-level institutions are connected through processes and structural mechanisms. The results also reveal how these processes and mechanisms can produce particular field dynamics that cannot be adequately explained through extant theories, which tend to rely either exclusively on agentic forces or exogenous shocks. Thus, this study specifies the ways in which both processes and structural mechanisms connect micro- and macro-level research within the institutional literature.