Situating Organizations in Politics: A Diachronic View of Control–Resistance Dialectics

Organization scholars have long been interested in both collective action and the complexities revealed through dialectical analysis. A diachronic view provides one means of intertwining these concerns by exploring the way durable, systemic changes emerge temporally from ongoing contestation among stakeholders. The author explores this diachronic view through a decade-long multistakeholder conflict concerning the Grand Staircase— Escalante National Monument in the U.S. state of Utah. The case makes evident the historic unfolding of power dynamics: A successful resistance movement becomes a regime of control in an ongoing struggle among groups. The author concludes by discussing the capacity of diachronic analysis to illuminate (a) politics among organizations, (b) transformative potential of dialectics, (c) interplay of symbolic and material spheres, and (d) mutual yet distinct roles of dialectical and paradoxical tensions.