How to divide people with things: division entrepreneurs, wedges, and the Delta Smelt controversy

Abstract

Drawing on a multi-method analysis of the controversy surrounding the Delta Smelt, an endangered fish emblematic of California’s so-called “water wars,” this article develops the concepts of division entrepreneurs as strategic actors who articulate partisan selves in relation to partisan others, and wedges as divisive cultural objects. Despite the appearance of a conflict about the distribution of water, the dynamics of the Delta Smelt controversy cannot be explained hydrologically. Instead, conservative division entrepreneurs opportunistically imbued the species with partisan significance, thus mobilizing it as a wedge. The Delta Smelt’s particular qualities, including its status as an uncharismatic microfauna, afforded divisive action. Forging new connections among literatures on the construction of social problems, political polarization, and pragmatist cultural sociology, this article proposes a framework for understanding how strategic actors use objects to shape political senses of “us” and “them.”