Liking or Needing? Theorizing on the Role of Affect in Network Behavior

Informal networks are crucial for the functioning of public organizations and the quality of government service. Because of this, public administration scholars increasingly theorize on what drives informal network behavior, particularly in terms of whom public officials contact for information or advice. However, existing studies provide a rather rational and strategic account of how such networking occurs, pointing to factors, such as preference similarity, resource availability, and social capital as its main drivers. This article critiques the microfoundations of existing theoretical models, arguing that they (a) potentially require too extensive information-processing capabilities on behalf of individual decision-makers and (b) discount the role that affect and emotive responses are likely to play in the social activity of networked interaction. In response, this article proposes three lines of theorizing on how (interpersonal) affect can be incorporated into theorizing about the network behavior of public officials: (1) affect as a fallback strategy; (2) affect in the driver’s seat; and (3) affect as a decision distorter. Several methods are discussed to empirically pursue the presented lines of theorizing.