Networks Of Collective Action

Networks of Collective Action: A Perspective on Community Influence Systems develops a theoretically informed research framework for the structural analysis of social systems. To this end, special attention is given to two fundamental issues in structural analysis: First, how does one most usefully define or identify the elementary units, be they individuals, corporate actors, or population subgroups, that comprise a given social system, and in what ways should these elementary units be characterized or differentiated from one another? And, second, what are the relational modalities by which these actors are linked to one another in ways that are relevant to understanding how their individual preferences and behavior are coordinated or integrated with one another for purposes of collective action (i.e., to achieve collective goals)? The book is organized into three main parts. Part I describes the research site and its environmental context, and then makes a structural analysis of the internal social and value differentiation of the population subsystem. Part II focuses on the elite subsystem and on its role in resolving specific community controversies. Part III turns to a topic often neglected in studying democratically legitimized influence systems: the systematic theoretical and empirical characterization of the relationships between the elite and the population subsystems in the community.

Social Movements and Networks examines the extent to which a network approach should inform research on collective action. For the first time in a single volume, leading social movements researchers systematically map out and assess the contribution of social network approaches to their field of enquiry in light of broader theoretical perspective. By exploring how networks affect individual contributions to collective action in both democratic and non-democratic organizations, and how patterns of inter-organizational linkages affect the circulation of resources within and between movements, the authors show how network concepts improve our grasp of the relationship between social movements and elites and of the dynamics of the political processes.

An analysis of the overlooked role of the peripheral vanguard in the context of a network theory of collective action.

Rejecting the dichotomy of centralism and horizontalism that has deeply marked millennial politics, Rodrigo Nunes' close analysis of network systems demonstrates how organising within contemporary social and political movements exists somewhere between - or beyond - the two. Rather than the party or chaos, the one or the multitude, he discovers a 'bestiary' of hybrid organisational forms and practices that render such disjunctives false. The resulting picture shows how social and technical networks can and do facilitate strategic action and fluid distributions of power at the same time. It is by developing the strategic potentials that are already immanent to networks, he argues, that contemporary solutions to the question of organisation can be developed. Part of the PML Books series. A collaboration between Mute and the Post-Media Lab. http: //metamute.org

This work addresses the gap in the current collective action literature exposed by the new Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) landscape by bringing together qualitative and quantitative studies from computational and social sciences. The book offers a rigorous and systematic investigation of both methodological and theoretical underpinnings and, thus, collectively promotes a symbiotic and synergistic advancement of the multiple interconnected disciplines in studying online collective actions. More specifically, the book is intended to illuminate several fundamental and powerful yet theoretically undeveloped and largely unexplored aspects of collective action in the participatory media (e.g., social media). Through in-depth exploration of relevant concepts, theories, methodologies, applications, and case studies, the reader will gain an advanced understanding of collective action with the advent of the new generation of ICTs enabled by social media and the Internet. The developed theories will be valuable and comprehensive references for those interested in examining the role of ICTs not only in collective action but also in decision and policy making, understanding the dynamics of interaction, collaboration, cooperation, communication, as well as information flow and propagation, and social network research for years to come. Further, the book also serves as an extensive repository of data sets and tools that can be used by researchers leading to a deeper and more fundamental understanding of the dynamics of the crowd in online collective actions.

The problem of collective action is that each group member wants other members to make necessary sacrifices while he or she 'free rides', reaping the benefits of collective action without doing the work. Therefore, no one does the work and the common interest is not realized. This book analyses the social pressure whereby groups solve the problem of collective action.

How social media is giving rise to a chaotic new form of politics As people spend increasing proportions of their daily lives using social media, such as Twitter and Facebook, they are being invited to support myriad political causes by sharing, liking, endorsing, or downloading. Chain reactions caused by these tiny acts of participation form a growing part of collective action today, from neighborhood campaigns to global political movements. Political Turbulence reveals that, in fact, most attempts at collective action online do not succeed, but some give rise to huge mobilizations—even revolutions. Drawing on large-scale data generated from the Internet and real-world events, this book shows how mobilizations that succeed are unpredictable, unstable, and often unsustainable. To better understand this unruly new force in the political world, the authors use experiments that test how social media influence citizens deciding whether or not to participate. They show how different personality types react to social influences and identify which types of people are willing to participate at an early stage in a mobilization when there are few supporters or signals of viability. The authors argue that pluralism is the model of democracy that is emerging in the social media age—not the ordered, organized vision of early pluralists, but a chaotic, turbulent form of politics. This book demonstrates how data science and experimentation with social data can provide a methodological toolkit for understanding, shaping, and perhaps even predicting the outcomes of this democratic turbulence.