Power and Relation in the World Polity: e INGO Network Country Score, 1978-1998 Melanie M. Hughes, University of Pittsburgh Lindsey Peterson, Ohio State University Jill Ann Harrison, Ohio State University Pamela Paxton, Ohio State University World polity theory is explicitly relational, implying a global network structure that exists outside of the nation-state. And world polity theory increasingly acknowledges power – that some states and regions are dominant in the international field. But current world polity measures of international non- governmental organizations do not adequately incorporate either networks or power, leading to a mismatch between theory and measurement. In this article, we draw upon world polity, world system and social networks theories to inform the development of a new over-time measure of country-level connectedness to the world polity, which we label the “INGO Network Country Score.” is measure scores countries by their centrality in the world country-INGO network. We compare our newly-proposed INGO Network Country Score to the traditional measure (country-level raw counts of INGO memberships) and demonstrate striking differences. Our network-based measure shows less inequality among Western countries than the traditional measure, and greater inequality between the West and the rest of the world. Looking over time, we draw three further implications from our new measure. First, there is evidence of inequality in network centrality in the world polity at all time points. Second, regional inequalities persist. ird, connections in the world polity are not exponentially increasing, as previously hypothesized. An added benefit of the analysis is our presentation of the first visual representation of country connections through INGOs. We thank Jim Moody, Andrew Martin, Ryan Light, Joan Huber and the Ohio State University Social Change Working Group for helpful comments on an earlier draſt of this article. We gratefully acknowledge the support of the National Science Foundation SES-0318367 and SES-0549973. Direct correspondence to Melanie Hughes, Department of Sociology, University of Pittsburgh, 2611 Wesley W. Posvar Hall, Pittsburgh, PA 15260. E-mail: hughesm@pitt.edu.