Imagined communities: Reflections on the origin and spread of nationalism

Social Network Analysis

What makes organizations so similar? We contend that the engine of rationalization and bureaucratization has moved from the competitive marketplace to the state and the professions. Once a set of organizations emerges as a field, a paradox arises: rational actors make their organizations increasingly similar as they try to change them. We describe three isomorphic processes-coercive, mimetic, and normative—leading to this outcome. We then specify hypotheses about the impact of resource centralization and dependency, goal ambiguity and technical uncertainty, and professionalization and structuration on isomorphic change. Finally, we suggest implications for theories of organizations and social change.

The iron cage revisited: Institutional isomorphism and collective rationality in organizational fields (Chinese Translation)

Ethnic Groups in Conflict

“WHAT can men do, what do they do, and what do they want to do ?”—these are the uestions that Prof. Thorndike seeks to answer in a very comprehensive and elaborate treatise. His undertaking is inspired by the belief that man has the possibility of almost complete control of his fate if only he will be guided by science, and that his failures are attributable to ignorance or folly. The main approach is through biological psychology, but all the social sciences are appealed to and utilized in an effort to deal with the human problem as a whole. The relative immaturity of the sciences dealing with man is continually stressed, but it is claimed that they provide a body of facts and principles which are “far above zero knowledge”, and that even now they are capable of affording valuable guidance in the shaping of public policy. Human Nature and the Social Order By E. L. Thorndike. Pp. xx + 1020. (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1940.) 18s. net.

Human Nature and the Social Order

This essay proposes to view networks as sociocultural structures. Following authors from Leopold von Wiese and Norbert Elias to Gary Alan Fine and Harrison White, networks are configurations of social relationships interwoven with meaning. Social relationships as the basic building blocks of networks are conceived of as dynamic structures of reciprocal (but not necessarily symmetric) expectations between alter and ego. Through their transactions, alter and ego construct an idiosyncratic “relationship culture” comprising symbols, narratives, and relational identities. The coupling of social relationships to networks, too, is heavily laden with meaning. The symbolic construction of persons is one instance of this coupling. Another instance is the application of social categories (like race or gender), which both map and structure social networks. The conclusion offers an agenda for research on this “meaning structure of social networks.”

https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/40376109.pdf

The Meaning Structure of Social Networks

The paper systematizes the role of qualitative methods, statistical analyses, and formal network analysis in sociological network research, and argues for their systematic combination. Formal network analysis mainly aims at a description of network structures as well as at an explanation of the behavior of the network at the systemic level. Formal network analysis can also be used in order to explain individual behavior or the existence of individual connections from network structure. Statistical analyses of ego-centered networks are used to correlate individual attributes with the structure and composition of the individual embeddedness, thus providing a statistical explanation of network effects and determinants. Qualitative methods are important for exploring network structures, and for understanding the meaning connected to them. A historical overview shows that these three strands have long co-existed in sociological network research without engaging in combined research efforts. Combinations of these methods prove useful when considering the various aspects of networks (individual connections, structural patterns, and meaning).

Tackling connections, structure, and meaning in networks: quantitative and qualitative methods in sociological network research

Zusammenfassung Der Aufsatz setzt Niklas Luhmanns Systemtheorie in Beziehung zur soziologischen Netzwerkanalyse, um Grundlagen für eine allgemeine Netzwerktheorie zu entwickeln. Er beginnt mit Luhmanns Diskussion von Sinn als einer zentralen Kategorie der Soziologie. Luhmanns Formulierung wird erweitert von einem Fokus auf die Dyade und doppelte Kontingenz hin zur Reichweite von Netzwerken und daher multipler Kontingenz. Während Kommunikations- und Handlungsaspekte von Sinn in Netzwerken ineinandergreifen, entflechtet der Aufsatz analytisch deren jeweils besondere Bedingungen und führt dabei die Konzepte Netdoms, Netdom Switching und Discipline ein. Netzwerktheorie lenkt damit den Blick auf das Zusammenspiel von zeitlichen, sozialen und interpretativen Dynamiken in der Konstitution und Verkettung von Sinnhorizonten. Darüber hinaus entfaltet der Aufsatz das Konzept »Style« als synkopierte Komplexität, um Luhmanns Top-Down-Ansatz bei der selbstreferentiellen Reproduktion von funktionalen Subsystemen zu ergänzen.

/pdf/networks-and-meaning-styles-and-switchings-3tc5wjhl4z.pdf

Networks and Meaning: Styles and Switchings

This paper offers an overview of relational sociology as developed by and around Harrison White. Relational sociology provides a substantial account of social networks, conceptualizing them as real social structures interwoven with meaning. Forms of meaning connected to network configurations (as part of their ‘domains’) include stories, identities, social categories (including role categories), and institutions. Recent advances lead to a network perspective on culture, and to an emphasis on communicative events in networks. In contrast to other strands of relational sociology, the approach aims at a close connection between empirical research and theoretical reflection. Theoretical concepts and arguments are geared at empirical applicability in network research, rather than mainly providing a theoretical description of the social world. Finally, the author's own version of relational sociology is sketched: social networks are seen as dynamic constructions of relational expectations. These emerge and deve...

Theorizing social networks: the relational sociology of and around Harrison White

Der Aufsatz entwickelt drei zentrale Argumente: 1. Der Gruppenbegriff — im fruhen 20. Jahrhundert eines der Kernkonzepte der Soziologie — verliert zwischen 1960 und 1970 an Bedeutung. Er wird als Metapher fur Verflechtungen sozialer Beziehungen zunehmend vom Netzwerkbegriff verdrangt. 2. Wahrend der Gruppenbegriff abgeschlossene soziale Einheiten suggeriert, betont der Netzwerkbegriff die interrelationale Verknupfung von Beziehungen und sozialen Kontexten miteinander. Gerade die komplexen sozialen Strukturen der Moderne sind besser mit dem Netzwerkbegriff zu fassen. 3. Gruppen sind Spezialfalle von Netzwerkstrukturen. Gruppen sind „involuierte” Netzwerke, in denen eine sinnhaft konstruierte soziale Ausengrenze zum zentralen Orientierungspunkt wird und fur eine tendenzielle Ausrichtung von Netzwerkbeziehungen an der sozialen Grenzziehung sorgt. Diese drei Argumente werden in einem geschichtlichen Uberblick uber die Behandlung von Gruppen und Netzwerken in verschiedenen Ansatzen der soziologischen Theorie entfaltet. Diskutiert werden vor allem die Formale Soziologie in Deutschland um Georg Simmel und Leopold von Wiese, der Symbolische Interaktionismus, die britische Sozialanthropologie und die amerikanische Netzwerkanalyse sowie die jungsten Entwicklungen der Phanomenologischen Netzwerktheorie um Harrison White in den USA. Der verfolgte Ansatz betont die Eigendynamik von Sozialbeziehungen und Beziehungsgebilden (wie z.B. Gruppen) auf der Mesoebene.

Jan Arendt Fuhse

Papers

The Meaning Structure of Social Networks

Tackling connections, structure, and meaning in networks: quantitative and qualitative methods in sociological network research

Networks and Meaning: Styles and Switchings

Theorizing social networks: the relational sociology of and around Harrison White

Gruppe und Netzwerk; eine begriffsgeschichtliche Rekonstruktion