Clara Egger
email: clara.egger@umrpacte.fr

"Organizations as Spaces of Work" Do Networks Make a Difference? Exploration of Working Processes in a European Humanitarian Network

Keywords: Interorganizational cooperation, organizational culture, institutional mimicry, path dependence, network organization

Most of the current studies focusing on network organizations analyze how interorganizational networks are created, how they develop and how they overcome the limitations of rigid and ill-adapted bureaucracies. This paper proposes a different stance and empirically studies how work is concretely carried out in NGOs network in order to assess the specificity of this new organizational space. The paper proposes a fine-grained analysis of the biggest humanitarian NGO network in Europe, VOICE, where the author spent eight months doing field observations and interviewing the network's staff and European policy-makers.

The results presented here explore the nexus between work and organizations in terms of innovation, framing and mimicry processes, organizational culture, power asymmetry and organizations' pathologies. First of all, networks face difficulty to innovate. Through isomorphism, network's staff members tend to copy the structure and functioning of organizations they consider successful. Moreover, one of the key tasks of the permanent secretariat of a network is to create a specific organizational culture, which can bring rival organizations together. Finally, the research shows that networks can suffer from the same pathologies affecting other organizations in terms of power asymmetry and path dependence.

These findings suggest that in future research about interoganizational networks, they also need to be considered as a workplace in order to fully understand the specificities of these new organizational spaces.

Introduction

VOICE is a critical but constructive partner in humanitarian aid. Through VOICE we have been able to get a clear view of the problems, vision and sensitivities of the humanitarian NGO community. Therefore, if VOICE did not exist -one would have to invent it." -Antonio Cavaco, Director General, DG Humanitarian Aid (ECHO)-From microbiology which describes cells as "information networks" to anti-globalization networks (Al Qaeda), the network seems to be the last fashionable concept. Scholars even consider it as the most efficient form of organization (Börzel 1997) and researchers from different academic fields proclaim the advent of the networking era. As a result, literature on network organization has grown quickly since the last decades. Current research focuses on the factors that make cooperation between organizations possible through networking [START_REF] Schemeil | From Mutual Denegation to Mutual Recognition: NGO/IGO Partnership in Trade and Atom[END_REF][START_REF] Biermann R | Towards a Theory of inter-organizational networking. The Euro-Atlantic security institutions interacting[END_REF], on how inter-organizational network influence policymaking processes [START_REF] Mendizabal | Understanding Networks: The Functions of Research Policy Networks[END_REF][START_REF] Perkin | Networks and Policy Processes in International Development: a literature review[END_REF]Sandström and Carlsson 2008;Le Galès and Thatcher 1995) and on how networks overcome the limitations of markets and hierarchical organizations [START_REF] Powell W | Neither market nor hierarchy : network forms of organization[END_REF][START_REF] Podolny | Network Forms of Organization[END_REF].

This working paper takes an original stance and aims to fill a gap in the existing literature on network forms of organization. By taking networks as workplaces, it analyzes how work is concretely carried out in such an organizational space. Based on the case-study of the biggest humanitarian NGOs network in Europe, VOICE 1 , it examines the specific constraints the permanent secretariat of a network has to face to fulfill its mandate. The paper also explores the specificities of networks' working processes.

The results presented in this paper explore the nexus between work and organizations in terms of innovation, framing and mimicry processes, organizational culture, power asymmetry and organizations' pathologies. By meeting the people that, by their daily work, make the network alive, this paper seeks to break some myths about networks in order to present a balanced account of their functioning and mal-functioning [START_REF] Podolny | Network Forms of Organization[END_REF].

The first part of the paper presents the state of the art on networks as forms of organization.

The second and third parts explain the design, theoretical assumptions and the methodology 1 VOICE stands for Voluntary Organizations in Cooperation in Emergencies. adopted here. The fourth part of the paper focuses on innovation and mimicry processes existing in inter-organizational network whereas Part V and VI analyze the key role the network secretariat plays in bringing competing organizations together. The last part of the paper presents some of the pathologies that affect inter-organizational networks. A. What is a network form of organization?

I-The advent of the networking era

In the middle 70's and early 80's several scholars attempted to open the black box of organizations. Two perspectives became prominent: principal-agent theory and transaction costs economics. Each theory favors a different model of organization: hierarchies, on the one hand; markets on the other. Even if it was implicit in principal agent theory, it was quite explicit in transaction cost economics [START_REF] Podolny | Network Forms of Organization[END_REF]. For example Williamson does not deny that other form of organizations may exist but mentions only two pure ideal-type (i.e. markets and hierarchies). According to him, other forms of organizations are hybrids of these two forms [START_REF] Williamson Oe | Comparative economic organization : the analysis of discrete structural alternatives[END_REF].

Sociologists first challenged the dichotomy between market and hierarchies. Powell argued that networks are not hybrids of markets and hierarchies: they need to be considered as a specific type of organization, with their own type of function and structure [START_REF] Powell W | Neither market nor hierarchy : network forms of organization[END_REF]. In his article, Podolny proposes the following definition of a network organization: " any collection of actors (N > 2) that pursue repeated, enduring exchange relations with one another and, at the same time, lack a legitimate organizational authority to arbitrate and resolve disputes that may arise during the exchange" [START_REF] Podolny | Network Forms of Organization[END_REF]. The author also adds other characteristics such as the fact that members of a network feel a sense of obligation to the other party or parties. Perrow also identifies trust as an essential attribute of interorganizational network [START_REF] Perrow C | Small Firm Networks[END_REF]. A last element emphasized by Podolny is the existence of a set of shared values that bring exchange-partners together [START_REF] Podolny | Network Forms of Organization[END_REF].

This definition, which empathizes some of the key specificities of a network organization has proven very useful for the analysis. However, when studying how network organizations are structured it appears that the majority of them do have a "legitimate organizational authority to arbitrate and resolve disputes". Most of the time, this authority takes the form of a permanent secretariat and of a Board, which are supposed to ensure that the network reach its objectives. It is important to note that the existence of a legitimate authority does not mean that the organization is hierarchical, rather that is has a specific governance system. Given this remark, the following definition of Le Gales and Thatcher appears to be better adapted to the study of network organization. In their paper, they assume that networks are "the result of non-hierarchical cooperation mechanisms with different degree of stability between organizations that know and recognize each other, negotiate, exchange various resources and can share norms and interests"2 (Le Galès and Thatcher 1995). This definition proposes a comprehensive vision of network focusing on its structure and also on its

B-How do inter-organizational network come from?

Jönsson is among the first to develop a theory of inter-organizational cooperation. He presents a wide series of factors which make cooperation possible. These factors are linked to the issue at the heart of a cooperation strategy (high vs. low politics, presence of a regime, interdependence of the actors) and to the properties of the organizations entering into networks. He emphasizes the role of "linking-pin organizations" and, within them, of "boundary-role personnel" which are likely to create ties between the different institutions belonging to the network. However he does not propose any hypotheses which explain the development of such typical organizations or personnel (Jönsson 1986). Biermann praises the assets of network analysis to build a theory of inter-organizational cooperation but it only focuses on dyads -i.e. pairs of organizations (Biermann 2007). Mitchell and Lewin maintain that creating network organizations among competing firms can be a powerful way of entering a rival organization's market [START_REF] Mitchell | The Coevolution of Network Alliances: A Longitudinal Analysis of an International Professional Network[END_REF]. Holohan develops a promising analysis of inter-organizational cooperation in crisis-management operations. She shows that creating network organizations can be a good way for international organizations to cooperate without losing their autonomy and specificity. She analyzes the importance of leadership; of a common organizational culture; and of new technologies for the development of a successful network organization [START_REF] Holohan | Networks of Democracy. Lessons from Kosovo for Afghanistan, Iraq and Beyond[END_REF].

C. What do networks do?

Networks are frequently said to be flexible and innovative organizational spaces which overcome the weaknesses of rigid and ill-adapted bureaucracies. This new organizational space seems particularly adapted to answer to the challenges of a globalized and fast-moving world. Most of current research on networks focuses on their functions, and thus on their functionality. Analysis of network's failure is absent from the literature [START_REF] Podolny | Network Forms of Organization[END_REF]. In his work, Podolny reviews some of the key functions of network organizations as emphasized by the literature. Networks are said to promote learning by promoting the rapid transfer of "selfcontained pieces of information" [START_REF] Podolny | Network Forms of Organization[END_REF]. By joining a network, an individual organization can gain from the legitimacy and status of its partners. Economic benefits are also important. [START_REF] Williamson Oe | Comparative economic organization : the analysis of discrete structural alternatives[END_REF] states some of the conditions under which network forms of organization decrease transaction costs.

Some sociologists claim that one of the major assets of the network form of organization is its adaptive capacity with regards to unanticipated environmental changes. Networks foster greater communication than the market does, thus network forms of organization are said to facilitate greater coordination in the face of changes that may be difficult to interpret and to understand. At the same time, scholars argue it is easier to modify the composition of network organizations to respond to those changes since boundaries of networks are more flexible than boundaries of formal organizations [START_REF] Podolny | Network Forms of Organization[END_REF]. Other benefits have also been pointed out by resource dependence scholars. They posit that organizations can lessen external constraints or uncertainty by strengthening their relationship with the particular sources of dependence [START_REF] Podolny | Network Forms of Organization[END_REF]. This perspective is also shared by scholars working on the influence interorganizational networks have on international decision-making process. For example, Schemeil demonstrate that, in order to be recognized as reliable partners by intergovernmental organizations, NGOs need to gather in networks. Once formed, these networks can have access to the decision making process of IGOs and increase their chances to get funding [START_REF] Schemeil | From Mutual Denegation to Mutual Recognition: NGO/IGO Partnership in Trade and Atom[END_REF][START_REF] Perrow C | Small Firm Networks[END_REF] identifies a number of social welfare benefits circulating in small firm networks. According to him, small firm networks provide autonomy, decrease inequality in the distribution of wealth, and create a great sense of community [START_REF] Perrow C | Small Firm Networks[END_REF].

Other researchers have analyzed the structure of ties of networks. Granovetter analyzes how information spreads in community or social networks. He shows that ties that matter are "weak" ties. According to him, a network is made up of strong and weak ties. Strong ties are those we have with close friends or family (frequent and intense relations). Weak ties concern only relatives which people rarely meets. These are strong ties when there are ties-bridges which enable to build links with other networks and to develop ties with a variety of communities3 [START_REF] Granovetter | The Strength of Weak Ties[END_REF]). Uzzi has shown that the various levels of embeddedness of firms in the American industry sector can explain the variation in the survival rates of the firms [START_REF] Uzzi | Networks and the Paradox of Embeddedness[END_REF].

Policy studies scholars also pay attention to the way the internal characteristics of a network can have an influence on its ability to build links with other types of organizations. Perkin and Court, in their review of the literature dedicated to networks, identify ten factors that contribute to increase the impact of lobbying strategies of networks [START_REF] Perkin | Networks and Policy Processes in International Development: a literature review[END_REF].

Sandström and Carlsson maintain that there is a causal link between the level of integration and homogeneity of a network and its capacity to influence decision making process (Sandström and Carlsson 2008). Mendizabal and, after him, researchers of the Overseas Development Institute emphasize the major functions of a network (filter, amplify, invest/provide, convene, community building, facilitate). The author also points out getting right priorities has an impact on the global performance of an inter organizational network [START_REF] Mendizabal | Understanding Networks: The Functions of Research Policy Networks[END_REF] The review of the literature focusing on network organization reveals that research on networks is already rich. However, it is striking to note that most works focus on their functionality. Moreover, networks are very rarely studied as workplaces. Analyzing the working processes occurring within a network will offer the opportunity to study what the permanent staff of such networks concretely does and the role it plays in developing the network. Such a study will offer a more balanced analysis of these new organizational spaces, focusing on their specificities, their assets but also on their limitations.

II-Taking networks as specific workplaces

This paper aims to fill this gap and intends to open the black box of networks taken as specific workplaces. Two questions are raised: what are the specific constraints the permanent staff of a network has to face in its daily work? How do staff member handle them in order to fulfill the network's mandate?

The research presented in this working paper is guided by two hypotheses. First of all, it is assumed that the raison d'être of an inter-organizational network is to overcome interorganizational rivalry in order to exchange various resources and to reach a common objective (Le Galès and Thatcher 1995). Therefore, the role of a secretariat -the permanent staff of a network -is to create the conditions that make the fulfillment of the network's mandate possible. In order to do so, the staff of a network will seek to find the most efficient form of organization by copying the structure of organizations they consider successful (Hyp. 1). In this race to innovate, the secretariat of the network will face several difficulties. Innovation appears to be a risky process for small structures which depend on the support of the organizations they represent. Thus networks often copy the structure of organizations they deem successful, or they want to influence (Di Maggio and Powell on isomorphism 1983).

Secondly, it is frequently assumed that the NGOs milieu is a highly competitive one.

Organizations compete for funding, legitimacy and survival [START_REF] Cooley | The NGO Scramble, Organisational Insecurity and the Political Economy of Transnational Action[END_REF].

Therefore, it is paradoxical to note that NGOs networks are created and are resilient. In this context one of the main roles of a secretariat is to create a common identity that eases interorganizational rivalry and enables organizations to be part of the network without losing their own specificity (Hyp.2) [START_REF] Holohan | Networks of Democracy. Lessons from Kosovo for Afghanistan, Iraq and Beyond[END_REF].

From a theoretical point of view, our research aims at building links between different albeit complementary theories. First of all, our principal theoretical framework is provided by institutional theory. As March and Olsen have shown in their seminal work, the present research rejects an economic view of institutions as rational actors. Rationality is always bounded. Standard operating procedures, norms and cognitive processes existing in organizations determine their collective behavior [START_REF] March | Rediscovering institutions: the organizational basis of politics[END_REF]. This paper also assumes that the environment in which organizational networks operate determines their choices in terms of strategy, organization, structure and working processes. In the view of organizational ecology scholars it is assumed that, as the environment changes, organizations adapt themselves to fit this new environment. Adaptation is essential to organizational survival. Organizations that fail to adapt to a new environment risk being marginalized if not shut down.

Another useful theory for this research is the principal/agent theory. According to this theory, the creation of organizations rests on a delegation process occurring between one or multiple principals (the creator-s) and an agent (their creature). Principals delegate competencies to an agent, and make this delegation strategy explicit in a contractual form. Principals accept to delegate competencies because control mechanisms are created to prevent their agent to exceed its powers. However, it has been shown that agents strive to increase their autonomy.

Most of the time, the mandate of an agent is vague and incomplete. Delegation provides the agents with a great room of maneuver since principals are reluctant to create expensive monitoring mechanisms (Hawkins, Lake, Nielson and al 2006).

III-Methodology of research

The research presented here takes stock of the tradition of sociological analysis of workplaces, such as the fine-grained ones presented by Crozier [START_REF] Crozier | L'acteur et le système : les contraintes de l'action collective[END_REF].

Since this research aims at improving our knowledge of how work is concretely carried out in new organizational spaces, I have chosen to ground my analysis on a case study. Several authors emphasize the need to carefully choose the cases at the heart of the analysis.

However, the present analysis does not seek to identify correlation mechanisms or to establish a theory about how work is done in networks [START_REF] Seawright | Case Selection Techniques in Case Study Research : A Menu of Qualitative and Quantitative Options[END_REF]. On the contrary, by studying a typical case, it is hoped that this paper will pave the way for further research on this topic. Table 1, based on the work of the Overseas Development Institute presents a list of the criteria that have guided the choice of the case (adapted from [START_REF] Mendizabal | Understanding Networks: The Functions of Research Policy Networks[END_REF]. VOICE is also a major actor of European humanitarian policy and its secretariat plays an active role in representing the interest of the NGOs community. What is striking when studying VOICE is the contrast between its limited human resources (only 3 permanent members in the secretariat) and the wide number of activities and functions it implements. This paper is based on the observations made when I was employed as a Communication and Advocacy Assistant, during an immersion period of eight months from February 2010 to September 2010. The position occupied is probably one of the most accurate to do participatory observation. This method, which is mainly used by sociologists, aims at reaching a "mutual understanding by sharing a common condition" (Foote [START_REF] Whyte | Street Corner Society. The social structure of an Italian slum[END_REF]. It is particularly suited to analyze working processes occurring in organizations [START_REF] Crozier | L'acteur et le système : les contraintes de l'action collective[END_REF]. The other staff members of the secretariat were aware of the objectives of the research, in order to enable me to work transparently and to respect scientific ethics. The position of Communication and Advocacy Assistant enables me to reach a fine-grained understanding of the functioning of the network, thanks to the variety of its assignments and to the permanent connection with its external environment 4 . This position is an asset to do research on the working processes of the network. From there it is easy to observe the network's daily life and to understand how it concretely works. Access was also granted to a wide number of strategic documents which were analyzed in detailed in order to get a sense of the working dynamics and organizational culture of the network. The assistant also has very close relationship with NGOs members. At the end of the immersion period, eight non-structured interviews were organized with VOICE's members, secretariat and Board as well as with European decision-makers. These interviews complemented the results of the participatory observation and to check their validity.

Figure 1: Selection criteria for the case

Even if it does not enable scholars to compare different cases in order to find regularities in the working processes of NGOs networks, this research paves the way for a detailed analysis of networks taken as workplaces. The results presented in the next session explore the nexus between work and organizations in terms of innovation, framing and isomorphism, organizational culture, power asymmetry and organizations' pathologies.

IV-Institutional isomorphism and innovation in network organizations

Analyzing the structure and governance of VOICE reveals some of its key specificities and explains why it enjoys such an added-value compared with other NGO networks. Firstly, the network has a unique mandate and benefits from a solid representativeness due to the creation of a specific EU humanitarian policy. Secondly, VOICE is both a legitimate and efficient inter-organizational network in the eyes of the European Commission due to its centralized structure and working processes.

A. VOICE : a double legitimacy 4 Firstly, the Communications and Advocacy Assistant experiences a great diversity of missions, which enables her to be in regular contact with all the other members of the secretariat. She works with the Communication and Advocacy Officer to define the communication policy of the network (website, newsletter, thematic papers…). In her advocacy missions, the assistant works in close collaboration with the secretariat's Director, Project Officer and Communication and Advocacy Officer. In order to fulfill these tasks, the assistant receives a twoweeks training focused on the network's history, values, functioning and mandate. The author was warmly welcomed by the secretariat's staff and gained access to first-hand information on VOICE's strategic decision, but also on the feelings of the VOICE's secretariat.

The assistant has also the opportunity to frequently attend to high-level meeting between the VOICE's secretariat and the VOICE's Board, various members and external interlocutors (EU's civil servants, other NGOs, UN's staff). To take but one example, the assistant attended to the VOICE's annual General Assembly, various working groups and Board meetings.

As Barnett and Finnemore have shown, it is important to look back to the history of organizations in order to understand their current functioning, assets and pathologies [START_REF] Barnett | The Politics, Power and Pathologies of International Organizations[END_REF]). VOICE's history is closely linked to the European integration and to the development of an autonomous humanitarian policy. It was created to represent the interests of humanitarian NGOs at the European level, and to provide European institutions with a legitimate interlocutor. In 1992, when a dedicated office in charge of humanitarian aid was created, the humanitarian NGOs felt that a specific network was needed in order to deal with these issues. Rufini, the first coordinator of VOICE, seized this opportunity ("when a special office is created inside the European Commission, the humanitarian NGOs feel the need to do the same thing"). For NGOs, the creation of VOICE was a financial imperative since few States possess a ministry or an agency in charge of financing humanitarian projects.

Most of the time, development assistance appears to be more profitable for States since it opens new markets for national firms. The birth of ECHO is a unique chance for NGOs to get their programs funded. Consequently, they don't hesitate to invest in a permanent structure toppling their network, which is in charge of building links with this new donor. Since its creation one of the main concerns of the VOICE secretariat is to appear as a key interlocutor for the EU while representing the variety of interests of the NGOs community.

Having a unique mandate is a matter of survival for a network's secretariat. The salaries of its permanent staff depend on the payment of membership fees by the network's members. The secretariat of VOICE has strived to obtain and maintain a double legitimacy to survive: towards its members on the one hand, and toward the EU commission on the other hand. VOICE's constitution shows to which extent the secretariat of the network is deeply concerned by its attractiveness, and its capacity to retain its members. VOICE is said to increase the efficiency of humanitarian aid by making cooperation between NGOs easier. It enables information sharing among members, and between the EU and its partners; it also develops common positions in order to defend the specificity of humanitarian aid; it positions itself as the main interlocutor of the EU on humanitarian issues (NGO VOICE 2011). However, VOICE does not only aggregate the positions of its members: it is said to act as a multiplier of NGOs' claims since its represents some 80 European humanitarian NGOs (NGO VOICE 2010). It is clear that the VOICE's secretariat is forced to sell its services to the European NGOs, which are very prone to "forum-shopping" on the very competitive market of inter-organizational networks (interview 2010). This is why, when speaking to the European institutions, the secretariat emphasizes its legitimacy and efficiency, portraying itself as an interface between the EU and the NGOs.

The legitimacy of VOICE rests on its diversity and representativeness. The reform of the European governance in 2000 has paved the way for a greater access of civil society organizations to the European Commission. A paragraph of the White Book on European Governance is dedicated to the consultation process, which should be at the heart of the EU decision making process (European Commission, COM( 2001)). It is argued that the EU needs a reinforced culture of consultation and of dialogue, should build links with networks and increasingly use expertise to improve its decision making process (European Commission, COM( 2001)). When the White Book mentions the need for a greater participation of civil society, it also adds some essential conditions for a greater access of civil society groups to the EC. Civil society groups need to be representative and to face up to its responsibility (European Commission, COM( 2001)).

By adopting flexible membership criteria, the secretariat has become an essential interlocutor of the EU, since the network reflects the diversity of the NGO community in Europe. In 2010, VOICE was the only European network that gathered 45% of the ECHO partners having a Framework Partnership Agreement5 with the Commission. The added value of VOICE is linked to what Perkin and Court call "strength in number" [START_REF] Perkin | Networks and Policy Processes in International Development: a literature review[END_REF]. With 83 members coming from 16 EU countries (as well as Switzerland and Norway), it makes plain the differences in size and capacities within the European humanitarian community (49 "small", 12 medium, and 20 components that can be considered as the most important players of the sector.

B-Institutional mimicry in a inter-organizational network

One of the key specificity of VOICE is that its structures and functioning can be explained by a will to be the most efficient possible in the fulfillment of its mandate: gaining access to the European institutions on the one hand, and influencing the European humanitarian policy on the other hand. The powers of the General Assembly (GA) and the election of the Board (ie the strategic organ of the network) confer on the organization a democratic and, thus legitimate character. Moreover, the autonomy of the secretariat enables the network to be flexible and efficient.

The VOICE GA is made up of all the VOICE members. Its meets annually in Brussels during the Forum, a two-days event with the Board meeting and a public event during the first day and the GA during the second. The GA is an essential event of the network's life: it gives to the members an opportunity to meet each other, which is rare because of the geographical dispersion of the NGOs and because of the high degree of turnover in NGOs. The GA is also the place where all the strategic decisions are made. The powers of the members are very large (in terms of strategic decision and of control of the other organs). The GA elects the Board, which is the organ which leads the network. The Board is in charge of adopting all the strategic decisions and controlling the work of the secretariat. Within the Board, an Executive Committee made up of the VOICE's director, the president and the treasurer is responsible of the daily management of the network. Currently the secretariat manages three working groups, plus an ad hoc one (aimed to fulfill a single and specific objective). The secretariat plays a great role in ensuring that the network focuses on its key missions and on the activities for which it has an added-value. Contrary to other networks, VOICE members appreciate that "there is a clear strategy that is different […] if we compared with other groups, platforms… It does not work in all directions, there are not 36 000 working groups" (interview, 2010). The VOICE secretariat knows that, to survive in a competitive world, the network should focus on specific missions and the permanent staff knows what the right level of information for its members is. Emails are rare but always relevant, thus members pay attention to them.

The secretariat Director is an essential person in VOICE. Her powers are very large in order to implement the mandate of the network. She oversees all the activities put in place by the network and her work is controlled by the Board and the GA. Moreover, the director represents the network toward external interlocutors. To these wide powers, personal factors should be added. The current director of VOICE has led the network since its independence in 2001. It is under her direction that the network has gained the status of privileged interlocutor of the European institutions on humanitarian issues. Her personality is strongly associated with VOICE. There is a "Kathrin footprint" (interview, 2010). The VOICE director has gained a clear strategic vision, a great social capital 6 [START_REF] Bourdieu | La distinction. Critique sociale du jugement[END_REF]) and a solid knowledge of the European humanitarian policy thanks to the time she has occupied this position. Kathrin Schick is often consulted by the members and she is frequently invited to high-level conferences. She has a very clear vision of what the network's objectives should be. She knows how to deal with the European stakes and has learnt to make the most efficient use of the limited resources of the Secretariat in order not to "dilute" the specificity of the network. She is also aware of what NGOs want when they join a network and constantly adapts the network's messages to the needs of the members. This prominent role of the Secretariat is at the heart of VOICE's added-value. Contrary to what Podolny states, network organizations can act as agents and do not always "lack a legitimate organizational authority" [START_REF] Podolny | Network Forms of Organization[END_REF]). On the contrary, by joining VOICE, NGOs delegate advocacy some of their competences in advocacy to the secretariat. This delegation process is expressed as a form of contract in the VOICE Statutes 7 . Thus, the VOICE secretariat acts as an agent of the NGOs. In order to be successful in its advocacy strategies, the VOICE secretariat has chosen to copy the structure of the organization they want to influence. As European States delegated power and competencies to the European Commission (EC), national NGOs delegate some of their competences to the VOICE secretariat. NGOs adopt what Coleman has called a "corporate approach" (Schneider, Dang Nguyen and Werle 1994). This approach seeks to implement collective actions by creating an organ which is given resources to fulfill specific objectives in the name of its creators.

It is striking to note how networks have difficulty to innovate. They often copy the functioning and structure of the organizations they want to influence or they consider successful. The creation of VOICE reveals the phenomena of institutional mimicry that Di Maggio and Powell have put in light (Di Maggio and Powell 1992). As the EC or other IOs, the secretariat enjoys a considerable room of maneuver and autonomy. The creation of such an agent can be explained by various factors. First of all, NGOs rarely have access to the EC unilaterally. The creation of a secretariat enables them to rely on a specialized and expert agency which has the time to develop advocacy strategies aimed to influence the EU 6 The term "social capital" has been defined by Pierre Bourdieu as a "capital of social relations which can be used, when needed, as useful supports, capital of integrity and of respectability which is essential to attract and retain the "good society" trust." (Bourdieu 1982 : 133). Such a capital can be used for a political career or to get an advancement. 7 Statutes for the establishment of VOICE under Belgian law, article 22 "The Board of Directors shall appoint a Director, to whom it shall delegate responsibility for all the daily executive and financial management of the association, under its supervision and general control", p.7. institutions. Such a specialization is advisable since the relations between the VOICE secretariat and the EU institutions are regular, repetitive and imply a solid knowledge of what the institutional access points are (Hawkins, Lake, Nielson et al, 2006). This role of the secretariat is reinforced by the minimal control mechanisms put in place by the principals.

The control powers of the Board depend on the secretariat's will to produce activity reports.

The specialization of the secretariat and the lack of knowledge NGOs have of the EU humanitarian policy increase the power of the secretariat and reduce the powers of its members. The secretariat does not hesitate to use this power asymmetry to ask for more autonomy and for more competences. Since VOICE is a useful agent, NGOs tend to accept it.

In the case of VOICE, the three types of institutional isomorphism emphasized by Di Maggio and Powell (1992) are mixed. First of all, Di Maggio and Powell use the concept of coercive isomorphism (1992) to explain how organizations adjust their structures and functioning to the organizations on which they depend. VOICE is highly dependent on the Commission for two reasons. First of all, its very survival depends on its capacity to be perceived as a legitimate actor by ECHO and thus to have access to the Commission decision making process. Moreover, the VOICE secretariat is financially dependent on ECHO since the salary of the Project Coordinator is paid thanks to an ECHO Grant.

Another type of isomorphism, the mimetic isomorphism, occurs when organizations copy the functioning of organizations they consider successful in an uncertain environment. The networks market is a highly competitive one [START_REF] Cooley | The NGO Scramble, Organisational Insecurity and the Political Economy of Transnational Action[END_REF]. Sources of uncertainty are numerous. The VOICE secretariat is always confronted to new problems (emergence of news actors, of new policy issues on the agenda) and its existence is always conditional [START_REF] Nielson | Delegation to International Organizations : Agency Theory and World Bank Environmental Reform[END_REF]. The survival of the network depends on the payment of membership fees by its members which face budgetary constraints due to the financial crisis and to the decrease of aid budgets. Therefore, the VOICE secretariat has chosen to copy the delegation process used by States when they create IOs since it considers such a delegation process as a successful one. IOs enjoy a large degree of autonomy and very few are disbanded by their principals.

Finally, given that NGOs staff and ECHO's civil servant tend to share the same professional background, values and academic training, normative isomorphism occurs between VOICE and ECHO. The VOICE secretariat shares a common understanding of policy problems and of their solutions with ECHO. These shared values have even led VOICE to defend the specificity of ECHO and of the EU humanitarian policy during the creation of the European External Action Service (EEAS). The EEAS was supposed to integrate all the tools of the EU foreign policy in a single service. Both VOICE and ECHO perceive such an evolution as a threat to the independence and to the specificity of humanitarian aid. During the debates about the types of services that should be included in the EEAS, VOICE prefer defending ECHO's specificity whereas allying with development NGOs to defend the specificity of humanitarian and development policies.

C-Implications on the working processes in VOICE

The analysis of the VOICE structure shows that networks have difficulty to innovate.

Networks always exist in relation to the organization they want to influence. Thus VOICE seeks to duplicate the EC structure for normative and coercive reasons. Moreover, since it operates in an uncertain context, it seeks to copy the functioning and governance structure of organizations it consider successful. This has numerous implications on the working processes of the network. First of all, the secretariat has learned to speak the EU language and VOICE's resolutions often adopt the EU's wordings and structure. Moreover, the network's staff has a good command of the formal codes of the EU's administration: VOICE's director is frequently invited to high level meetings and informal receptions where the lobby is able to deliver its messages. This socialization is also reinforced by the fact that the staffs of a network's secretariat and the EU's civil servants share the same expertise and the same academic background. Mutual understanding is also made easier by the figures of the alumni.

Alumni are people who leave an organization to work in another [START_REF] Schemeil | Expertise and Political Competence: Consensus Making within the World Trade and the World Meteorological Organizations[END_REF]. They play a great role in creating links between different organization and in fostering interorganizational cooperation. In the case of VOICE, it is not rare that the staff of a network has started working for the EC or has left its position to become a European civil servant.

Moreover, most of the staff working at ECHO has a long experience of work in European humanitarian NGOs (interview 2010). Such a similarity between the VOICE secretariat and ECHO members of staff can create tensions and dilemma for the network. The VOICE secretariat often defends ECHO when it is attacked by its members even if the network's mandate focuses on the defense of its members' interests and not on the ones of the Commission. The VOICE secretariat is sometimes reluctant to openly question the functioning of the Commission since it does not want to threaten its friendly relationships with the Commission's staff.

V-The reign of the equals?

In the definition of a network organization, it is often assumed that hierarchy is absent.

Members are considered equals and they voluntarily exchange resources (Le Galès and Tatcher 1995;[START_REF] Podolny | Network Forms of Organization[END_REF]. Reality seems to be more complex: when we analyze the distribution of power existing in networks. We find out that the de jure equality stressed in VOICE conceals a de facto inequality.

First of all, the General Assembly should not be considered as a homogeneous organ.

Members do not have the same resources and capacities to equally contribute to the network activities in the same way. There are active members who shape the life of the network and passive members which "are there without being there". Their "free-rider" strategy [START_REF] Olson | The logic of collective action: public goods and the theory of groups[END_REF] is not sanctioned: these organizations benefit from the network legitimacy, have regularly access to first-hand information and can use credible advocacy messages for their own campaign.

To this inequality, a practice of consensual vote and tacit consent should be added. The GA is not a place where members debate; strategic discussions occur in small committees within the Board. The GA can amend documents proposed by the Board but members rarely dare to question the competences of the secretariat and of those of the Board. This functioning is not inconsistent: it can be seen as a way to reconcile the imperative of efficacy and of representativeness, a key issue for all network organizations. This inequality of resources leads to a low level of turnover in the organizations elected in the Board, as figure 4 shows.

Figure 4: Number of mand

To be elected, an organization need [START_REF] Bourdieu | La distinction. Critique sociale du jugement[END_REF]. Such a cap access to a high position i mobilization of the network's members organization and other organizations a member organization has frequent relations with a small number of similar organizations (i.e. having their headquarters in ties that count can be weaklink organizations from different professional networks. In VOICE, the members belonging to an NGO family (i.e. Médecins du Monde, [START_REF] Granovetter | The Strength of Weak Ties[END_REF]. A family has members in different States and is therefore embedded in different kind of networks (national, professional…).

The secretariat plays a great role in preventing this asymmet the network. First of all, the secretariat is aware that this inequality of power can lead to the fact that active members use the network to secretariat has created socializat receive a crash training on their role and responsibilities from VOICE 200To be elected, an organization needs to achieve some reputation and a high social capital pital of diverse and high-level social relatio in the network's strategic organs. However, more than the 's members, it is the quality of the links between a member organization and other organizations that can make elections easier. Thus, it does not matter if a member organization has frequent relations with a small number of similar organizations headquarters in the same State, or being specialized in the same issues). The in the sense that the organizations' leaders meet rarely from different professional networks. In VOICE, the members belonging to Médecins du Monde, Caritas, Care…) possess this kind of A family has members in different States and is therefore embedded in different kind of networks (national, professional…).

The secretariat plays a great role in preventing this asymmetry of power to all, the secretariat is aware that this inequality of power can lead to the fact that active members use the network to promote their own interests. a high social capital ons can be used to However, more than the between a member can make elections easier. Thus, it does not matter if a member organization has frequent relations with a small number of similar organizations ed in the same issues). The meet rarely -if they from different professional networks. In VOICE, the members belonging to Caritas, Care…) possess this kind of ties-bridges A family has members in different States and is therefore embedded in to threaten the life of all, the secretariat is aware that this inequality of power can lead to the their own interests. Therefore, the ion mechanisms for the Board members. New members 's director and from the

Nombre de Mandats

Board "old members". Very quickly, the organizations emphasize their mandate in the Board. This behavior is not spontaneous: it stems from socialization techniques that can be found in transnational network (Risse-Kappen 1995), be they professional trips, repeated meetings or diners in Brussels.

The secretariat also encourages new members to apply to the Board. It always tries to come to a representative composition of the Board in terms of nationality of the organizations, field of expertise and size. It also plays a crucial role in having "its" candidates elected. Most of the time, members do not know each other and it is not rare that they call the secretariat to get advices on the candidates.

Last but not least, the secretariat has also imagined other ways to reduce this power inequality. For example, it can use the bi-annual newsletter to shed the light on a member; or it can spread at the European level some of the most successful initiatives of its members. It plays an essential role in promoting the "small members", for instance by paying for their travel costs to Brussels.

VI-The more, the better? On the need to conciliate network's members diverging interests

Representativeness is another key asset of inter-organizational network [START_REF] Perkin | Networks and Policy Processes in International Development: a literature review[END_REF]. However, this "strength in number" [START_REF] Perkin | Networks and Policy Processes in International Development: a literature review[END_REF] can become a weakness and the diversity of members can threaten the integration of the network.

In its advocacy activities, VOICE faces a paradox: if all the members agree with the general objective of defending the specificity of the European humanitarian aid policy, few are ready to compromise in order to reach a common position. This paradox reveals one of the limits of inter-organizational cooperation in the NGO sector. Each NGO survives in a highly competitive market by emphasizing its specific mandate [START_REF] Cooley | The NGO Scramble, Organisational Insecurity and the Political Economy of Transnational Action[END_REF]. It is therefore highly risky for them to adopt a common position, which tends to mask their own added value. In this context, one of the key tasks of the secretariat is to create a organizational culture while allowing its members to keep their specificities.

The experience of the working group on civil-military relations is one of the best examples of the diversity of the VOICE members. Created in February 2008, after a seminar organized by the network on this issue, its objective is to "contribute to preserve the humanitarian space by promoting the humanitarian principles and International Humanitarian Law (IHL)" (NGO VOICE 2008). The terms of reference are very vague: key concepts are never defined and the size of the group is not limited. Thus, the atmosphere during meetings is often very tense and the consensus is hard to reach. The members of the group took more than eighteen months to write common recommendations to the EU on these issues as well as a common lexicon. This episode has left its mark on the secretariat history and the staff often remembers the difficulties and tensions triggered by this process (interview, 2010). Positions defended by NGOs members were highly heterogeneous: the Nordic NGOs marked by a tradition of strong partnership with their national State do not define neutrality in the same way than French NGOs do. The latter absolutely refuse to be assimilated to the French national policies. This heterogeneity of positions is associated with a refusal to compromise on the principles on which the existence of an organization was grounded. The raison d'être of an NGO is the mandate that it has decided to follow. Denying or changing these principles amounts to question the existence of an organization. It is therefore essential for organizations to defend their "interpretation" of the humanitarian principles. In the case of the civ-mil working group, the secretariat has actively attempted to strike a balance. It has raised awareness among the members on the importance of sharing the same identity and the same principles by organizing training sessions on these issues.

Since its creation, the secretariat has aimed to create a common identity by asserting the specificity of humanitarian NGOs compared to organizations specialized in development or peace building. Even if, in theory, members create working groups, the secretariat always initiates activities on issues which are likely to create a common organizational culture. For example, the secretariat has always refused to create working groups on country issues. It considers this theme cannot lead to the sharing of a common organizational culture and identity (interview 2010). It prefers creating partnership with other humanitarian organizations to building links with NGOs platforms specialized in development or peace building issue.

In order to create this common humanitarian culture, the network closely cooperates with ECHO, the European Commission office in charge of humanitarian aid. The legitimacy of the secretariat relies on the way it has gained the confidence of the European Commission by adopting an expert attitude. The majority of the activities set up by the secretariat serves a double objective: answering to the needs of the members and being perceived as a legitimate partner by the EU, and more especially by ECHO. Therefore the information spread by the secretariat is always focused on humanitarian policies. Training session and advocacy messages all tend to emphasize the alleged humanitarian NGOs specificity. Lastly, if the secretariat has succeeded in fostering a common sense of identity, it is mainly because members perceive the secretariat as a successful agent.

Since its creation VOICE has developed a specific organizational profile. VOICE is an expert organization, centralized and highly efficient in the fulfillment of its mandate: creating a community of EU humanitarian NGO and being a key partner of the European Commission in the definition of the European humanitarian policy.

VII-Pathologies of networks

As Barnett and Finnemore have shown, international organizations may develop pathologies, which can make them less effective agents [START_REF] Barnett | The Politics, Power and Pathologies of International Organizations[END_REF]. On the contrary, the literature on networks tends to focus on their assets and on how they overcome the limitations of rigid and ill-adapted bureaucracies [START_REF] Podolny | Network Forms of Organization[END_REF]. The last part of the paper contributes to shed light on some of the malfunctioning of network organizations.

First of all, it has been noted that one of the key tasks of the secretariat has been to create a shared organizational culture among its members. The profile of VOICE reveals the major evolution of the NGOs sector since the last decade. NGOs tend to be less vocal in order to be considered by IGOs as professional and expert organizations [START_REF] Reinalda | International organizations and implementation: enforcers, managers, authorities?[END_REF]. With its current profile, VOICE is not able to seize the opportunity of dialogue offered by the EP or the Council. Both institutions have a vital need of information to assert themselves as relevant actors of the humanitarian policy. However the EP and the Council do not offer the same access to interests groups.

The EP is generally considered as an "open" institution [START_REF] Quittkat | Les organisations professionnelles françaises : européanisation de l'intermédiation des intérêts ?[END_REF]. However, the EP does not enjoy a great expertise about humanitarian issues. This institution mainly enjoys budgetary and control powers which have an impact on humanitarian aid policies sincethe adoption of the Lisbon Treaty. However, even if the DEVE Committee is the major organ in charge of development and humanitarian issues, other commissions such as the Budget and External Affairs Commissions play a role in determining what the EU humanitarian aid policy should be. The secretariat has therefore too limited resources to seek access to three different commissions. Moreover, having a seat in the DEVE Commission is not considered as a priority or even as rewarding for political parties. Michèle Striffler, the permanent Rapporteur for Humanitarian Aid in the EP argues: « first of all I was above all interested in agriculture.

But as nobody wanted development and humanitarian issues, I took them » 8 .

The access to the Council mainly depends on the priorities of the European Presidencies. To take but one example, the Swedish presidency (during the second semester of 2009) was concerned with humanitarian issues and develops a dialogue with VOICE. On the contrary VOICE tends to fear the "weak" presidency (such as the ones of new member states) since the secretariat knows that those States lack a strong humanitarian tradition. Moreover, the Council is often considered as a "closed" institution [START_REF] Quittkat | Les organisations professionnelles françaises : européanisation de l'intermédiation des intérêts ?[END_REF]. The functioning of the council is inter-governmental and members states tend to defend national interests and not European ones [START_REF] Quittkat | Les organisations professionnelles françaises : européanisation de l'intermédiation des intérêts ?[END_REF]. It is therefore difficult for European networks to have access to such an institutions. The VOICE secretariat has therefore chosen that seeking access to the Council was the role of its members NGOs which can lobby their national government.

The analysis of the relations between VOICE and the European institutions reveals phenomena of path dependency [START_REF] Pierson | Path Dependence, Increasing Returns, and the Study of Politics[END_REF]. VOICE is victim of groupthink and tends to be prisoner of its relation with ECHO. This pathology is revealed by the inability of the network to perceive changes in its environment. VOICE does not seem to be aware of the fact that the EP and the Council will determine the future of the EU humanitarian policies. The VOICE secretariat does not consider developing relations with the EP and the Council as a priority. Thus, it fails to develop a proactive strategy in order to be recognized as a key interlocutor for both institutions.

Expertise is not a useful resource to build links with these institutions. Parliamentarians and permanent representatives of the member States are in a learning process about EU humanitarian policy. They are not informed enough to think about, and to understand the stakes of the EU humanitarian policy. Moreover, the politicians of the EP and of the Council are not bureaucrats: their career depends on the support of the European public opinion and on their electoral successes. As a result, they are more reactive to spectacular mobilization which 8 http://michele-striffler.com can have an impact on the European public opinion. The secretariat does not feel comfortable with such a register of action. Its legitimacy and credibility rely on its expertise and its moderate behavior. Moreover, the secretariat hardly uses innovative means of communication which are a key element in the efficiency of network organizations [START_REF] Holohan | Networks of Democracy. Lessons from Kosovo for Afghanistan, Iraq and Beyond[END_REF].

Campaigns aimed to the European public opinion are considered by the secretariat as having a negative impact of the network's reputation. The secretariat reacts with suspicion to the media's solicitations and does not seize the opportunity offered by high-profile events to spread its messages and raise the awareness of the European public opinion. For example, it is one of the rare networks which do not ask questions to the candidates to the European parliamentary elections. Without reforms, VOICE faces a dilemma: does the secretariat need to develop new modes of action even if it threatens its privileged relation with ECHO? Or shall VOICE choose to focus on its relation with ECHO and run the risk to become a marginal actor of the EU humanitarian policy?

The governance structure of VOICE can also lead to negative side effects on the functioning of the network. Literature on principal agent theory focuses on three risks triggered by the delegation process [START_REF] Nielson | Delegation to International Organizations : Agency Theory and World Bank Environmental Reform[END_REF]. First of all, the agent can hide information to its principals. It is often the case in VOICE, since the secretariat filters the information coming from European institutions and selects what it choose to let its members know.

Secondly, agents can hide actions that the principals would sanction if they were aware of. In the case of VOICE, when no French members were elected at the Board in 2010, the secretariat gives a prominent role to a French NGO in order to give French NGOs a chance to influence the network strategic decisions. Such a behavior is not allowed by the French statutes since the Board is the only body in charge of determining the strategy of the network.. Thirdly, principals can face the "Madison's dilemma"-in which the delegation process may give powers to the agent that can be used against the principal. There is always agency slippage between what the principals want and what the agent concretely does since the interests of principals and agents are not coincident (Nielson and Tierney 2002). The confidence that the VOICE's director enjoys enables her to play a powerful role in the network, which often exceed her mandate. During the Board meetings, all the documents that need to be approved (such as the annual Workplan or the General Policy Resolution) are prepared by the Secretariat. Faced with the reputation, credibility and successes of the Director, few members dare questioning her work and decisions. Moreover, the NGOs members of VOICE form a "collective principal" which faces difficulty to coordinate. These coordination problems and the absence of common views between the VOICE members increase the room of maneuver of the VOICE secretariat. Thus, the secretariat tends to develop the network's positions in an insulated manner, based on what its thinks the interests of the members are and without formally consulting them. However, the secretariat never takes excessive risks: it knows where its right of initiative ends and consults its members when stakes are important.

Conclusion

Based on the case study of the most influential humanitarian NGOs network in Europe, this paper seeks to examine the specificities of the working processes existing in network organization. The results presented here are based on a long immersion period of the author in the network's secretariat. They tend to confirm the hypotheses made.

First of all, the staff of a network is concerned with legitimating the existence of this network (and thus its own existence). Since the legitimacy of an organization is based on its results, the network's permanent staff members copies the functioning and structure of organizations they consider successful or they want to influence. It is striking to note that the structure of VOICE is similar to formal organizations' ones, and more especially to those of the EU. This has numerous implications for the work of the secretariat. Resolutions adopted by the network often take up the EU language. The network's staff has a good command the formal codes of EU administration: VOICE's director is frequently invited to high level meetings and informal receptions where it works as an interest group and is able to deliver its messages. This socialization is also reinforced by the fact that the staffs of a network's secretariat and the EU's civil servants share the same expertise and come from the same academic background.

Such a similarity is due to the fact that NGOs join a network such as VOICE not only to exchange resources, but to delegate competencies to the network's secretariat. They transfer competences in terms of advocacy strategy and pool resources to fund a specialized agent which is in charge of developing relations with the European institutions and of influencing the EU decision-making process. To ensure the efficiency of such a delegation process, NGOs copy existing delegation mechanisms such as those that exist between States and intergovernmental organizations.

The second major constraint that determines the specific tasks of a network's secretariat stems from the need to create a common organizational culture, which can smoothe inter-organizational rivalry, and ensure the survival of the network. Power and capacity asymmetries as well as the diverging needs of the member organizations can threaten the integration of a network organization. One of the key roles of the network secretariat in this context is to device socialization mechanisms which lead to the creation of an organizational culture, proper to the network. This culture should bring organizations together in order to fulfill a common objective. However, organizations should keep their specificity and their added-value in order to survive at the individual level.

Finally, this paper proposes new insights on the pathologies of network organizations. It appears that networks can be resistant to change once they have created a specific and successful identity. Such a path dependency phenomenon can prevent the network from adapting to changes in its environment. In the long run, networks can become marginalized and disappear. Thus it is not always true that networks are adaptive organizations with flexible boundaries [START_REF] Podolny | Network Forms of Organization[END_REF]. Agency slippage [START_REF] Nielson | Delegation to International Organizations : Agency Theory and World Bank Environmental Reform[END_REF] is another risk for a network secretariat. The autonomy that a network's secretariat enjoys is always conditional. Members accept it if they feel that the secretariat is successful in fulfilling the network's mandate. This autonomy can have side effects if the network's secretariat carries out its own objectives without consulting or even representing its members' interests.

The research has shown that the secretariat of inter-organizational networks plays a prominent role in ensuring that the network reaches its objectives. It is therefore paradoxical that such an important object has received so little attention from the scholarly literature. This paper also offers a new definition of network organization. It appears that networks do not always lack a legitimate authority to implement their mandate [START_REF] Podolny | Network Forms of Organization[END_REF]. Networks are not always successful: they can fail to adapt to unanticipated changes in their environment. By studying them as workplaces some of their failures and malfunctioning are made manifest. Since this research focuses on a specific case, its results have only a limited reach. However such a case study paves the way for further research that will hopefully confirm and complement these results. However, this paper has also shown that, in further research focusing on network organization, attention should be paid to the permanent staff of such new organizational spaces.

  Since the last decades, literature on network organizations has flourished. Current research aims to define what networks are, how they develop and what do they do. However, few attempts have been made to analyze the working processes occurring in network organizations.

  functioning. Now that the concept of network is more clearly defined, we shall analyze how this concept has been used to solve contemporary research puzzles. Research on networks can be divided in two main categories. A first stream of literature focuses on how networks are created by cooperating organizations. A second body of literature deals with networks developement, how they are structured and what do they actually do.

Figure

  Figure 3: Governance structure of VOICE

Figure 4 :

 4 Figure 4: Number of mandates in the VOICE Board per organization (200

  secretariat has created socialization mechanisms for the Board members. training on their role and responsibilities from VOICE's director and from the 21 ates in the VOICE Board per organization

  However, contrary to individual NGOs, which cannot survive without the support of public opinion, VOICE has developed by cutting itself off from every activity that does not correspond to its vision of what a professional organization should be. As a result, VOICE has no link with the media, the academics, or the European public opinion. If VOICE is well adapted to interact with technical and competent institutions (as the Commission is), it faces difficulties when it needs to develop relations outside a closed professional community.Within this community, groupthink can develop and prevents the network from developing relations with two emerging actors of the EU humanitarian policy: the European Parliament (EP) and the European Council (the Council).

List of criteria (Mendizabal 2006) Presentation of VOICE

  Given the criteria presented in table 1, VOICE appears to fit our goals. VOICE is the biggest and the most influential humanitarian NGOs' network in Europe. It gathers some 83 major European NGOs active in humanitarian aid worldwide coming from all the European countries which have a long tradition in disaster relief. Table 2 displays a list of VOICE members in 2010. VOICE is the main interlocutor of the European decision makers in the realms of emergency aid, relief, rehabilitation and disaster preparedness.

	World Vision Finland Caritas Luxembourg	CORD
				International Medical
	FRANCE	THE NETHERLANDS	Corps UK
	Action Contre la			International Rescue
	Faim (ACF)	CARE Nederland	Committee UK
	ACTED	Cordaid		Islamic Relief Worldwide
	CARE France	Healthnet TPO	Marie Stopes International
	Figure 2: List of VOICE's members (2010) Handicap Intl France ICCO	Mercy Corps
	Médecins du Monde
	AUSTRIA France	GERMANY OXFAM Novib	NORWAY Merlin
	Première Urgence	World Vision Nederland	Norwegian Refugee Oxfam GB
	CARE Österreich Secours Catholique	ADRA Deustchland ZOA Refugee Care	Council Plan Intl UK
	Secours Islamique			Save the Children UK
	Caritas Österreich Secours Populaire	Arbeiter Samariter Bund Deutschland	Portugal
	Hilfswerk Österreich CARE Deustchland-Luxemburg Français SOS Kinderdorf Intl Deutscher Caritasverband Solidarités International World Vision Österreich Diakonie Katastrophenhilfe Télécoms Sans BELGIUM Johanniter-Unfall-Hilfe Frontières	Tearfund Medicos do Mundo SPAIN World Vision UK Accion Contra El Hambre Caritas Espagnola
	Caritas Secours Intl Belgium Triangle Génération Humanitaire Malteser Intl		Intermon Oxfam
	Handicap Intl
	Belgium Medecins du Monde Based in Brussels,	Medico Intl		Medicos del Mundo
	Belgium	Plan Intl Germany	SWEDEN
	STRUCTURE Oxfam Solidarités-
	Presence of a permanent staff Solidariteit Welthungerhilfe Yes	Church of Sweden
	Localisation (Easy access to the CZECH
	network's permanent staff) REPUBLIC World Vision Germany Brussels (link with the EU institutions + open secretariat) International Aid Services
	People in Need	GREECE	83 members in 2010 representing 45% of EC partners and PMU Interlife
	DENMARK	coming form 16 European countries. Great diversity of Medecins du Monde Greece SWITZERLAND
	Membership		members.	Lutheran World
	ADRA Denmark	IRELAND	Numerous strategic documents + strategic organs (Board, Federation
	Strategic capacity ASF Dansk		secretariat) 3 + 1 Working groups
	Ressources Folkehjaelp	Important financial resources + limited human resources Concern Worldwide Medair
	Communication (type, visibility, frequencies) DanChurchAid (DCA) Trocaire Danish Refugee FUNCTIONS Council (DRC) World Vision Ireland Bi annual newsletter, monthly internal letter, website, UNITED KINGDOM advocacy documents Action Against Hunger
	Filtering Mission East	ITALY	Yes	Action Aid
	Community Building Save the Childre		Yes
	Amplify Denmark	Yes Caritas Italiana	ADRA UK
	Convene FINLAND	Yes CESVI-Cooperazione e Sviluppo	CARE Intl UK
	Invest/Provide	Yes CISP Comitato Internazionale per lo
	Facilitate FIDA Intl Finn Church Aid	Sviluppo dei Popoli Yes LUXEMBOURG	CAFOD Christian Aid

This is the author's translation.

Such a view is shared by scholars focusing on the role of linking-pin organization (Jönsson 1986). Crozier and Friedberg speak of the role of the "marginal sécant"[START_REF] Crozier | L'acteur et le système : les contraintes de l'action collective[END_REF].

The Framework Partnership Agreement (FPA) is a contract that links ECHO to its partners. NGOs that want to apply to EU funding need to sign a FPA with ECHO.

Acknowledgments

To Wolf-Dieter Eberwein, Yves Schemeil and Eric Remacle for their useful comments.

To the staff and to the members of VOICE for their warm welcome.

The author also warmly thanks PACTE and the Scientific Commission of Science Po Grenoble for their financial support.


Serge Abiteboul

Emilien Antoine

Julia Stoyanovich

Viewing the Web as a Distributed Knowledge Base

This papers addresses the challenges faced by everyday Web users, who interact with inherently heterogeneous and distributed information. Managing such data is currently beyond the skills of casual users. We describe ongoing work that has as its goal the development of foundations for declarative distributed data management. In this approach, we see the Web as a knowledge base consisting of distributed logical facts and rules. Our objective is to enable automated reasoning over this knowledge base, ultimately improving the quality of service and of data. For this, we use Webdamlog, a Datalogstyle language with rule delegation. We outline ongoing efforts on the WebdamExchange platform that combines Webdamlog evaluation with communication and security protocols.

I. INTRODUCTION

Information of interest may be found on the Web in a variety of forms, in many systems, and with different access protocols.

A typical user may have information on many devices (smartphone, laptop, TV box, etc.), many systems (mailers, blogs, Web sites, etc.), many social networks (Facebook, Picasa, etc.). This same user may have access to more information from family, friends, associations, companies, and organizations. Today, the control and management of the diversity of data and tasks in this setting are beyond the skills of casual users. Facing similar issues, companies see the cost of managing and integrating information skyrocketing.

We are interested here in the management of such data. Our focus is not on harvesting all the data of a particular user or a group of users and then managing it in a centralized manner. Instead, we are concerned with the management of Web data in place in a distributed manner, with a possibly large number of autonomous, heterogeneous systems collaborating to support certain tasks. More precisely, we are concerned with the foundations of such data management.

Centralized data management has matured with relational database systems, enabled by the combination and cooperation of a very active research community and a very successful industry. The success of the field rests on a solid formal foundation, which combines existing tools, e.g., first-order logic for specifying queries and dependencies, with others that were developed from scratch, e.g., query optimization or concurrency control. As a result, centralized data management systems are now very reliable and the corresponding science is well-developed.

For distributed data on the Web, the foundations of relational databases do not suffice, for the following reasons.

• Trees. The exchange standard for the Web is based on data trees (HTML, XML, JSON) and not on relations. This is already a very active area of research, and we will not focus on it here.

• Distribution. We are interested in enabling collaboration of autonomous systems and users. Our goal is to support distributed processing, allowing each peer/user to maintain better control of their data, and leveraging the available computational resources. Foundations for distributed data management are still insufficiently developed, and we focus on them in our research. • Uncertainty. A critical dimension of the problem is the imprecise, uncertain, and noisy nature of data on the Web. Additionally, the actors in a task may have imprecise or conflicting opinions, and so modeling their collaboration calls for representing trust and probabilities. This is an important direction of research that we will only marginally address here. Our thesis is that managing the richness and diversity of user-centric data residing on the Web can be tamed using a holistic approach based on a distributed knowledge base. Our approach, outlined in this paper, is to represent all Web information as logical facts, and Web data management tasks as logical rules. The automatic reasoning by the inference engine, operating over the Web knowledge base, will greatly benefit a variety of complex data management tasks that currently require intense work and deep expertise.

The paper is organized as follows. We argue for our point of view of the Web as a distributed knowledge base in Section II. We give an overview of Webdamlog, a novel Datalogstyle rule-based language, in Section III. In Section IV, we describe our implementation of WebdamExchange, a system that combines Webdamlog evaluation with access control and communication protocols. We outline future directions and conclude in Section V.

This work is part of the Webdam European project. A more detailed presentations of the results of the project may be found on the Webdam Web site at http://webdam.inria.fr/.

II. A DISTRIBUTED KNOWLEDGE BASE

Information that is associated with a particular Web user, and that we aim to represent and reason with, comes in a variety of forms. For example, user Alice may have the following types of information:

• Data: text and XML documents, photos, and videos.

• Metadata: who took a particular photo of Alice, when and where. • Data localization: where is Alice keeping her photos.

• Access right: who is allowed to see Alice's photos.

• Credentials: Alice's passwords on Picasa and Facebook.

• Knowledge about data of other peers: replication policy, trust in a peer, belief in a particular statement.

• Provenance information: from which peer was a particular photo obtained, when, and how. Currently, Alice carries the burden of managing these and other types of information in various ways, including bookmark lists, password files, and replicas of the data on one or several backup systems. Our goal is to have the system manage this information on Alice's behalf, and automatically access and combine appropriate pieces of information to accomplish tasks. We now illustrate this with an example.

Suppose that Alice is organizing a rock climbing outing in Fontainebleau, and wishes to put together an application for the event that she will share with the members of her rock climbing group. Part of the data she needs is the list of group members, which is stored on Facebook. To promote the event, she also wants to use pictures from previous outings, which members of the group store on public sites, such as Picasa or Flickr, private websites, and in an untrusted DHT that group member Bob has set up. Finally, Alice will need to obtain some information from public Web services, e.g., she may use Google maps to get the locations of bouldering areas in Fontainebleau.

Using existing technology, Alice will have to use several different tools and APIs to check what information is available, from which Web services, and whether she has access to it. Having identified all relevant and accessible information, Alice will then need to understand how to retrieve it. We believe that many of these tasks can be specified by declarative queries and evaluated efficiently by a system equipped with reasoning capabilities. The system will process the queries over a distributed knowledge base, automatically dealing with thorny issues such as where to find some data, how to obtain access rights, and which protocols/interfaces to use. In our example, the knowledge base will be used to obtain the list of group members from Facebook, find where each member stores their photos from rock climbing outings, and get the photos using proper credentials. Note that this reasoning has to be performed in an extremely heterogeneous setting, where systems, interfaces, access control and data organization (e.g., ontologies) may widely vary across members of the group.

The kinds of reasoning tasks we are envisioning, and that are to be captured by rules, therefore include:

• Accessing information. Knowledge is used to localize data, e.g., find which systems hold the information of interest. Also, when a new source of information is discovered, some simple reasoning may be required to understand how it should be used, and how to obtain access rights. • Peer's policy. Each peer specifies its own policy, which includes choices such as where to store/search for particular information, which data to serve to other peers, and which data to replicate. Such policies in social networks are typically defined based on information such as the composition of user groups ("circles" in Google+ terminology). • Ontology processing. A particular source may structure its information in a particular manner or even describe it using RDF or RDFS. Reasoning is necessary to query this information. In particular, when accessing different information sources, knowledge is needed to align their concepts and relations. • Quality management. Reasoning may be needed to assess the truthfulness of some data or to choose between contradicting information. This is related to evaluating the confidence one has in some data, the trust in sources, and, more generally, the beliefs of a particular peer or user. • Knowledge acquisition and dissemination. These are central issues in this context. Knowledge acquisition, i.e., acquiring new facts and rules and evaluating their quality, should provide principled mechanisms that protect against (i) accepting any kind of information that is published by anyone on the Web and (ii) revising opinions too easily and in an ad-hoc manner (e.g., believing the last person who spoke).

Carrying out data management tasks in the Web setting typically requires direct involvement from the user, e.g., to acquire and transform information, or to download and execute applications. Towards the goal of automating these tasks, we implemented the WebdamExchange system, which will be described in Section IV. In the first version of the system, peer policies were implemented in Java. However, as we quickly realized, a user's interaction with the system could be made much easier if policies were specified declaratively. Beyond supporting an intuitive way for understanding, creating, and customizing policies, a declarative specification of rules in a distributed knowledge base allows each peer to act independently, based on its own data and logic. We express the peer's logic in Datalog-style rules of Webdamlog, a language we will describe in Section III. As we will see, peers exchange facts (for information) and rules (in place of code).

Such a holistic approach based on declarative rules provides the following advantages:

• Reasoning. Peers may perform automatic reasoning using the available knowledge. The global system therefore becomes "intelligent", and an improvement in the quality of service and of information can be expected. • Formal model. Because the model is formally defined, it becomes possible to prove (or disprove) desirable properties such as soundness (data is only acquired legitimately) and completeness (all legitimate data is acquired). This is in the spirit of [START_REF] Abadi | Logic in Access Control (Tutorial Notes)[END_REF] that uses logic to describe access control protocols. • Performance. Because the model is based on a Datalogstyle language, it can benefit from optimization techniques. This is in the spirit of works from UC Berkeley on declarative programming for distributed systems [START_REF] Hellerstein | Datalog redux: experience and conjecture[END_REF], who show encouraging performance results with Datalog-style languages for applications such as Internet routing [START_REF] Loo | Declarative networking: language, execution and optimization[END_REF]. • Quality control. Because our model represents provenance [START_REF] Abiteboul | A model for web information management with access control[END_REF] and time, we can better control the quality of data. Provenance also plays an important role in specifying and enforcing access control and security policies, e.g., detecting who is responsible for misuse of the system. • Large spectrum. Because the model is general, it can represent very different scenarios, ranging from centralized to massively distributed systems, from fully trusted to untrusted peers, and providing both encrypted and unencrypted information. Furthermore, the model can capture arbitrarily rich combinations of scenarios, which is the reality of today's Web.

III. WEBDAMLOG

In [START_REF] Abiteboul | A rule-based language for Web data management[END_REF], we introduced Webdamlog, a novel Datalog-style rule-based language. In Webdamlog, each piece of information belongs to a principal. We distinguish between two kinds of principals: peer and virtual principal. A peer, e.g., AlicePhone or Picasa, has storage and processing capabilities, and can receive and handle queries and update requests. A virtual principal, e.g., Alice or RockClimbingClub, represents a user or a group of users, and relies on peers for storage and processing. We further distinguish between facts, representing local tuples and messages between peers, and rules, which may be evaluated locally or delegated to other peers.

The model has a formal semantics. Although we showed that, under some strong conditions, the semantics coincides with that of a centralized system, Webdamlog is primarily meant to be used in a distributed setting. Perhaps the main novelty of the language is the notion of delegation, which amounts to a peer installing a rule on another peer. In its simplest form, delegation is a remote materialized view. In its general form, it allows peers to exchange knowledge beyond simple facts, providing the means for a peer to delegate work to other peers. We will not describe Webdamlog in detail here, but will illustrate it with examples, referring an interested reader to [START_REF] Abiteboul | A rule-based language for Web data management[END_REF] for details.

The following are examples of Webdamlog facts:

The first fact represents a tuple in relation agenda on peer AlicePhone with information about an upcoming meeting, and the second -a photo in Alice's Picasa account (a tuple in relation photos on peer Picasa). The third fact represents Alice's login credentials for her Picasa account (in relation writeSecret on peer Picasa). Suppose that Alice wishes to retrieve, and store on her laptop, photos from Fontainbleau outings that were taken by other members of her rock climbing group. To this effect, Alice issues the following rule: outingPhotos@AliceLaptop ($pic) :-rockClimbingGroup@Facebook ($member), findPhoto@AliceLaptop ($member, $photos, $peer), $photos@$peer ($pic, $meta), contains@$peer ($meta, "Fontainbleau")

This rule is a standard Webdamlog rule that illustrates various salient features of Webdamlog. First, the rule is declarative. Second, the assignment of values to peer names (e.g., $peer) and relation names (e.g., $photos) is determined during rule evaluation. Third, for $peer assigned to a system other than AliceLaptop (e.g., Picasa or Flickr), the activation of this rule will result in activating rules (by delegation), or in some processing simulating them in other systems (e.g., Picasa or Flickr). The evaluation of rules such as this one is performed by the WebdamExchange system, which includes a Webdamlog evaluation engine, and is responsible for handing communication and security protocols, and for invoking the Wedbamlog engine at each peer. WebdamExchange is described in the next section.

IV. THE WEBDAMEXCHANGE SYSTEM

The main goal of the WebdamExchange system is to provide an abstraction layer for communication and security protocols over heterogeneous peers on the Web. Figure 1 presents the architecture of the WebdamExchange system. We illustrate the execution of WedbamExchange using the rule outingPhotos@AliceLaptop, which retrieves and stores on Alice's laptop photos from Fontainbleau outings that were taken by other members of her rock climbing group.

Alice interacts with the system through the GUI, which provides a user-friendly way to specify the rule through a Webbased interface. User Avatar translates Alice's specification into the logical statement given at the end of Section III.

Communication Module annotates the rule with the communication protocol used by Alice, which in this case is the HTTP session started with Alice's login and password. The statement is then sent to the Security Module, which checks the authenticity of Alice using the Password component.

The authenticated statement is sent to the Manager Module, that decides whether to accept or reject it according to access control policies of the peer. In our current implementation [START_REF] Antoine | Demo] Social Networking on top of the WebdamExchange System[END_REF] standard policies are defined using access control lists, and are based on the name of the peer contained in the statement metadata. Mechanisms for specifying and enforcing access control are described in [START_REF] Abiteboul | A model for web information management with access control[END_REF]. If the rule is accepted, it is passed to the Wedbamlog engine for evaluation. All facts and rules processed by the Manager Module, along with their provenance metadata, are recorded in the XML Database to be able to prove the correctness of reasoning if needed.

Suppose that Bob is a member of the rock climbing group, and so $Member = Bob. Suppose that Bob has stored some of his photos on peer Picasa, and some others on BobLaptop, in relation BobPhotos. To retrieve Bob's photos, the Wedbamlog engine issues the following two delegations: outingPhotos@AliceLaptop ($pic) :-BobPhotos@BobLaptop ($pic, $meta), contains@BobLaptop ($meta, "Fontainbleau") outingPhotos@AliceLaptop ($pic) :-BobPhotos@Picasa ($pic, $meta), contains@Picasa ($meta, "Fontainbleau")

The first delegation is sent to BobLaptop, which is a WedbamExchange peer. Then the Manager module annotates this delegation using RSA security and Web service communication protocols, as defined in our standard policy for WebdamExchange peer data transfer. The delegation is then passed to the Security Module, which signs and encrypts it. Finally, Communication Module sends the delegation using the Web services protocol.

The second delegation has to be sent to Picasa, which is not a WebdamExchange peer, and so cannot install the rule in its program. However, the semantics of this rule correspond to an operation that Picasa is able to perform, which is to select the photos with "Fontainbleau" in their meta-data. Communication with Picasa is enabled by a wrapper, which translates the statement into an HTTP request. In this case, we assume that the wrapper has created a schema, containing relations BobPhotos@Picasa(. . . ) and contains@Picasa(. . . ). This schema corresponds to the mapping between the data residing on Picasa and its representation in our system. To summarize, the communication and security policies defined by the Manager, Communication and Security modules allow us to communicate with a variety of peers.

A prototype implementation of WebdamExchange, with limited delegation and access control, was described in [START_REF] Antoine | Demo] Social Networking on top of the WebdamExchange System[END_REF]. Supporting full rule delegation, and specifying and enforcing access control policies that arise as a result of rule delegation are a subject of our ongoing work.

V. CONCLUSION In this paper, we outlined challenges faced by everyday Web users, who manage and interact with information that is inherently heterogeneous and distributed. We proposed to view the Web as a distributed knowledge base of logical facts and rules, and described Webdamlog, a Datalog-style language that enables automated reasoning over this knowledge base. The main novel feature of Webdamlog is its use of rule delegation (the installation of a rule by a peer on some other peer).

The information found on the Web is typically uncertain, imprecise, possibly inconsistent. We are building on some recent works, notably probabilistic XML [START_REF] Kimelfeld | Probabilistic XML: Models and complexity[END_REF] and corroboration [START_REF] Galland | Corroborating Information from Disagreeing Views[END_REF] to enrich Webdamlog with probabilities. More precisely, we are working on introducing probabilities (for imprecision) and functional dependencies (for inconsistencies) in Webdamlog.

We described the architecture of WebdamExchange, a system that combines Webdamlog evaluation with communication and security protocols, and that we are currently developing. In our current work on WedbamExchange, we tackle two important questions: (i) how can a Wedbamlog program be evaluated efficiently, given that rules may be added or removed as a result of delegation; and (ii) how can we specify and enforce access control policies in presence of rule delegation.

Fig. 1 .

 1 Fig. 1. Architecture of the WebdamExchange system

Acknowledgment. This work has been partially funded by the European Research Council under the European Community's Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013) / ERC grantWebdam, agreement 226513. http://webdam.inria.fr/