The Concept of Network - Essay Example

Social Development and Social Networks Introduction It is not difficult to see why the concept of network has become so popular in the social sciences in recent times. Its flexibility, and in many senses its very ambiguity, enables researchers to deal with phenomena of change, which are difficult to contain within the boundaries of formal bureaucracies or nation states, or at the other pole, the individual actor (Mutti 2005). Referring to networks provides a clue to assess the social location of specific actors as well as to identify general structural patterns from a relational perspective. The interest in the linkage between network concepts and social movement analysis may be located in at least three different intellectual contexts. The first one consists of the renewed interest in the meso-level of social analysis and the relation between structure and agency. Attention to the 'micro-macro link' (Alexander et al. 1987) has fostered the study of the patterns of social organization (including social networks), which mediate between the individual actors and macro social processes. The relation between the constraining character of social structure and the actors' capacity to affect it by adapting and modifying rules, meanings, and patterns of interaction has been addressed from several perspectives, from exchange theory (Coleman 2004) to action theory (Bourdieu 1977 ; Giddens 1984 ; Sewell 1992), from neo-institutionalism (DiMaggio and Powell 1991) to explicit attempts to reformulate theories of an agency from a relational, network perspective (White 1992 ; Emirbayer 1997). In some cases, advocates of the integration of structure and agency have argued their cases by drawing explicitly from social movement research (Emirbayer and Goodwin 1994). The second important trend has to do with the resurgence of interest in 'social mechanisms' (Hedström and Swedberg 1998) as a corrective to invariant explanations and the search for law-like formulations. Rather than reorienting social movement research, so far the attention to mechanisms has made more explicit what was already a relevant orientation within it, namely, the tendency to focus on specific dynamics relevant to the spread of social movement activity: among them, recruitment, framing, tactical adaptation of action repertoires, and of course networking. Attention to mechanisms has also brought about a plea for greater dialogue between the social movement community and cognate fields. This has mainly taken the form of the search for mechanisms which could account for a wide range of political processes, most of which had been overlooked so far by mainstream social movement research, such as democratization (Tilly 2001 ; McAdam et al. 2001). On the other hand, moving towards mechanisms has further strengthened the tendency to use the concept of social movement in purely denotative terms, that Touraine (1981) or Melucci (1996 , but originally 1982) had long exposed. 'Social movement' is in this perspective, merely the word to identify the set of phenomena ('episodes', in McAdam et al.'s (2001) words) within which the dynamics of substantive interest of researchers could take place. The Concept of Network in Social Movement Analysis Social movements have been defined in a variety of ways. For some, they are the actors of central conflicts in society, embodying fundamental oppositions regarding the direction of the historical process (Touraine 2004). For others, they represent a peculiar type of collective action, characterized by identity, solidarity, and the attempt to break limits of compatibility of a given system (Melucci 2006). For still others they are little more than expressions of preferences, that movement organizations are supposed to mobilize and turn into real action (McCarthy and Zald 2007 , even though they have changed their view of movements and got closer to Tilly's). The most popular view at the moment is probably one focusing on sustained interactions between challengers and power holders (Tilly 2001). Trying to associate networks to a particular conception of movements would make little sense at this stage. For all their differences, the definitions mentioned above all accommodate network mechanisms within their broader frameworks (Diani 2005). Moreover, we would risk overlooking the contribution that a network perspective can offer to our understanding of the multiplicity of levels of experience, usually found in processes of collective action and grassroots mobilization. It is, therefore, wiser to start by recognizing that a network perspective may illuminate different dynamics, which are essential to our empirical understanding of movements, and leave attempts to reconcile them in a unitary view of movements for a later stage (provided an integration should be needed at all, as many people in the field. A cautious approach also makes it more explicit that the empirical phenomena studied by 'social movement scholars' from a network perspective do not necessarily fall under a specific domain with clear-cut boundaries. The study of networks between citizens' organizations has been studied by people who would not regard themselves as social movement scholars (e.g. Knoke and Wood 2006). In order to follow some order in the presentation of the most relevant contributions of the social network perspective to social movement analysis in its inclusive version, it is worth referring to the conventional view of networks as sets of nodes, linked by some form of relationship, and delimited by some specific criteria. Although this framework is most frequently adopted by those close to the empiricist tradition rather than to the cultural one, it still leaves room for epistemological debates on what should represent a node, a tie, or a boundary, and in this particular sense it is fully compatible with the latter. Nodes may consist of individuals, organizations, and eventually; if more rarely; other entities such as neighbourhoods or states (e.g. Breiger 2000). They may also consist of events linked by persons, or as in some recent application, even of elements of speech (e.g. Bearman and Stovel 2000). Relationships may consist of either direct or indirect ties. We have direct ties when two nodes are directly linked in explicit interaction and interdependence; for example, two activists who know each other personally, or two organizations who jointly promote a rally. We have indirect ties when a relationship is assumed to exist between two nodes because they share some relevant activity or resource; for example, due to overlaps in their activists or sympathizers, or to their joint involvement in some initiatives or events. Relations may be single or multiple depending on whether two nodes are linked by one or more types of relations, and they may also differ in term of contents, emotional intensity, and strength. The definition of what constitutes a social bond is a huge problem in itself and it is disputable whether it should stretch as far as the cognitive maps shared by people, or the exposure to a similar message, or cognitive framework (Emirbayer and Goodwin 2003). Boundaries may be defined on the basis of realist or nominalist criteria. Nominalist criteria are predetermined by the analyst; in contrast, realist criteria include in a given network only those nodes that happen to be actually related to each other by some kind of relation. The identification of nodes, of the relevant ties between them, and of the boundaries of the network represent fundamental steps in any study of network structures. They will guide our discussion of what has been achieved in social movement analysis from a network perspective. Networks of Individuals Social movements exist inasmuch as individuals can be convinced to become personally involved in collective action and be offered the opportunities to do so on a sustained basis. It is, therefore, not surprising that substantial attention has been paid to the contribution of social networks to individual participation. The notion that prior social ties operate as a basis for movement recruitment and that established social settings are the locus of movement emergence are among the most established findings in social movement research. Typically, social movement activists and sympathizers are linked through both 'private' and 'public' ties well before collective action develops. Personal friends, relatives, colleagues, and neighbours, may all affect individual decisions to become involved in a movement; so may people who share with prospective participants some kind of collective engagement, such as previous or current participation in other movement activities, political or social organizations, and public bodies. Individuals may also be linked through indirect ties, generated by their joint involvement in specific activities and/or events, yet without any face-to-face interaction. These may range from participation in the same political or social activities and/or organizations to involvement in the same subcultures or counter-cultures (e.g. the rave parties' scene in the UK in the 1990s, or the gay and lesbian counter-cultures in the USA: Taylor and Whittier 2002). One current critical area of debate is the extent to which exposure to the same media, whether 'traditional' (including television) or 'computer-based' may represent a social network link, and the impact of new forms of communication on social movement communities and the broader civil society (Rheinghold 2003 ; Norris 2002 : ch. 10). Even more fundamental is whether we should regard shared cognitive and cultural spaces as independent sources of links and therefore as the basis for specific types of networks (Emirbayer and Goodwin 1994). Physical And Psychological Health Analysis At a macro, sociological level, social disorganization was seen as the immediate precipitant of movement emergence. Movements were held to arise when rapid social change (e.g. industrialization and urbanization) occasioned a generalized breakdown of social order (Turner and Killian 1957). Movements, in this view, were groping, if ineffective, collective efforts to restore social order and the sense of normative certainty disrupted by change. As such they owed more to psychological, than political or economic, motivations. But even in the face of generalized social disorder, everyone was not equally 'at risk' of being drawn into the movement activity. Supplementing the macro relationship between social disorganization and movement emergence were a host of micro 'theories' arguing for a link between this or that set of individual and/or personality factors and movement participation (Rothman and Lichter 2004). Though differing in their specifics, social marginality or isolation was a general theme in most of these accounts. So various social or psychological 'deficits' were held to dispose individuals toward movement participation, even if social disorganization furnished the general impetus to collective action. Both the macro emphasis on social disorganization and the micro stress on isolation and marginality accorded well with the then-dominant pluralist model of America politics (Polsby 2003). Pluralists viewed the USA as a broad, open, and at least minimally responsive political system, featuring bargaining and negotiation by a wide array of groups who shared relatively equally in power. The presence of social movements could be seen as inconsistent with the theory, unless those movements are seen, not as instrumental political efforts, but as therapeutic vehicles through which needy people cope with the ill effects of social and personal disorganization. And so a tidy scholarly division of labour emerged: with pluralists explaining the workings of institutional politics and social movements, in Gamson's (2000 : 133) felicitous phrase, left to 'the social psychologist whose intellectual tools prepare him to better understand the irrational'. Conclusion However, social networks also shape other important features of collective action. They may contribute to organizational formation, sometimes through forms of block recruitment (Oberschall 2006) and other times by providing the necessary links between the founders. They may also provide the basis for factions and coalitions within organizations and for the emergence of group leadership. Looking at how members of a given movement organization interact with each other can also provide insights into its participatory rather than professional nature, the degree of internal division of labour, the subcultural elements of the group, the difficult balance between individual and group identities, etc.. Individual networks also represent the backbone of broader social movement communities where interpersonal ties are often multiple and may involve joint participation in mobilization campaigns as well as the sharing of distinctive lifestyles or of broader cultural models. While social movement scholars have studied them mostly in reference to 'new' social movements, working class communities continue to attract considerable attention from social historians and historical sociologists (Strangleman 2005). Communitarian ties operate at a minimum to strengthen the identity and solidarity among movement activists and sympathizers. 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