Political Networks: The Structural Perspective (structural Analysis In The Social Sciences)

Structural analysis in the social sciences 4 Political networks: the structural perspective Structural analysis in the social sciences Mark Granovetter, editor Other books in the series Ronald Breiger, editor, Social Mobility and Social Structure Mark S. Mizruchi and Michael Schwartz, editors, Intercorporate Relations: The Structural Analysis of Business Barry Wellman and S. D. Berkowitz, editors, Social Structures: A Network Approach The series Structural Analysis in the Social Sciences presents approaches that explain social behavior and institutions by reference to relations among such concrete social entities as persons and organizations. This contrasts with at least four other popular strategies: (1) reductionist attempts to explain by a focus on individuals alone; (2) explanations stressing the causal primacy of such abstract concepts as ideas, values, mental harmonies and cognitive maps (thus, "structuralism" on the Continent should be distinguished from structural analysis in the present sense); (3) technological and material determinism; and (4) explanations using "variables" as the main analytic concepts (as in the "structural equation" models that dominated much 1970s sociology), where the "structure" is that connecting variables rather than actual social entities. The "social network" approach is an important example of the strategy of structural analysis; the series also draws on social science theory and research that is not framed explicitly in network terms, but stresses the importance of relations rather than the atomization of reductionism or the determinism of ideas, technology, or material conditions. Though the structural perspective has become extremely popular and influential in all the social sciences, it does not have a coherent identity, and no series yet pulls together such work under a single rubric. By bringing the achievements of structurally oriented scholars to a wider public, the series hopes to encourage the use of this very fruitful approach. Mark Granovetter Political Networks The Structural Perspective David Knoke University of Minnesota CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS Published by the Press Syndicate of the University of Cambridge The Pitt Building, Trumpington Street, Cambridge CB2 IRP 40 West 20th Street, New York, NY 10011-4211, USA 10 Stamford Road, Oakleigh, Melbourne 3166, Australia © Cambridge University Press 1990 First published 1990 First paperback edition 1994 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available. A catolog record for this book is available from the British Library. ISBN 0-521-37552-5 hardback ISBN 0-521-47762-X paperback Transferred to digital printing 2003 To Roberta and Kathryn Contents 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 List of tables and figures Preface Acknowledgments Politics in structural perspective Voting and political participation Social movements (written with Nancy Wisely) Organizational power (written with Naomi J. Kaufman) Community power structures Elites in the nation state International relations (written with Jodi Burmeister-May) Toward a structural political economy Appendix: Some fundamentals of network analysis References Index vn viii ix xi 1 29 57 85 119 149 175 203 235 241 283 Tables and figures Tables 2.1 Characteristics of ego political networks 2.2 Multiple classification analyses of political activities by ego networks: deviations from dependent variable means 7.1 Exports among twelve nations in 1980 7.2 Military and political treaties (1980) 7.3 Block images for trade and treaty relations 8.1 Micro-structural to macro-structural relations 51 53 188 197 200 204 Figures 1.1 Types of power as combinations of influence and domination 2.1 Three hypothetical ego networks 2.2 Hypothetical egocentric networks of varying political