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Communication allows individuals to share information and plays a central role in determining animal social behaviour. Animals live in social networks of multiple individuals connected by links representing different interaction types. Signalling interactions form the base of the communication network (i.e., all conspecifics within signalling range) experienced by an individual and are particularly important for information exchange. Looking at interactions within a network has helped identify and explain the diverse signalling and receiving strategies adopted by animals, and may likewise help explain other social interactions. This chapter presents a network model which integrates the concepts of communication and social network. It illustrates how this model can affect information exchange in animal communities with different social structures and ecologies. Finally, it presents some concrete examples of the questions that arise and can be answered when looking at the behavioural ecology of birds from a network perspective.

Identifies specific network mechanisms at the individual level and illustrates how different social networks affect recruitment and individual participation in different voluntary organizations and social movement organizations. Socialization functions of social networks create an initial disposition to participate; structural‐connection functions generate practical opportunities for involvement; decision‐shaping functions affect the ultimate decision to take part. Empirical evidence comes from members of two political organizations active in the solidarity movement and the environmental movement in Switzerland, the Bern Declaration and WWF.

Presents a case for a reorientation of social movement theory and research along network lines. While looking at networks as a powerful precondition of collective action has proved a fruitful exercise in its own right, one could also take the network idea further and make it the core of a distinctive research program. Adopting a concept of social movement as a distinctive type of social networks may reorient social movement analysis and help better specifying the relation between movements and related phenomena such as coalitions, solidarity campaigns, and political organizations. The chapter briefly sketches the basic traits of a research programme for the analysis of network social mechanisms within social movements, looking first at different network patterns, and then identifying some analytical principles, which also draw upon existing paradigms.

This chapter deals with the claim of sociologists that the social structure of markets matters for their performance. ‘Social structure’ is understood as ‘structure of social relationships between actors’. To understand the meaning of ‘social structure’, a reasonable starting point is social network analysis. This chapter begins with a brief description of some basic concepts of social network analysis. It then considers some of the major sociological contributions on the effect of the structure of social relationships between actors on market performance. It shows that positive market models need to include elements of existing social networks between actors to become ‘sufficiently good approximations for the purpose in hand’.

Social policies designed to help people by securing a particular functioning might harm them by risking other functionings. One example is housing, where policies of slum clearance and rehousing, while improving people's housing conditions, disrupt their communities and social networks, often leading to severe problems in affiliation, mental health, and the ability to cope. Another example concerns means tested benefits, which while well-intentioned can be experienced as humiliating and stigmatizing, thereby risking a sense of autonomy and self esteem. This chapter argues that policy makers need to consider the total effects of their interventions, rather than simply concerning themselves with only their own policy areas. Remedies of ‘status enhancement’ are recommended, which improve an individual's genuine opportunities for secure functionings by changing the world around them, rather than identifying particular individuals as objects in need of help.

Explores changes in the informal networks of overlapping memberships between opposition organizations in Poland between the 1960s and the 1980s. When civic organizations are subject to severe constraints, as in Communist regimes, informal networks are particularly important as alternative sources of resources. There, networks not only operate as micro‐mobilization contexts but also provide the basic infrastructure for civil society. The chapter explicitly takes the time dimension into account, using individual affiliations to chart the evolution of networks over time, and offering an accurate reconstruction of changes in the Polish political system and the emergence of a strong democratization movement.

Deals with interorganizational networks in the environmental movement in the San Francisco Bay Area. It draws upon literatures on collaborative governance, social capital, and communitarianism to explore the embeddedness of social movements in local communities. Social movements can be regarded either as an expression of community embeddedness, strongly rooted in specific territorial spaces and the associated systems of relationships, or as attempts to build broader networks, based on the identification with a specific cause, which cut across local community loyalties and relations. The chapter explores which of the two models is more conducive to collaborative governance. Organizations occupying different structural positions in the environmental network display different levels of propensity towards collaborative governance.

This chapter discusses the theory and empirics of social interactions, with particular emphasis on the role of social context in individual decisions. It begins by introducing a sequence of models that highlight applications in different empirical social interaction settings, including a simple static model that is used to link social interactions theory with social networks theory, notably random graph theory. A dynamic model, where the social structure accommodates a variety of social interaction motives, is then described and solved as a dynamic system of evolving individual actions. The solution links social interactions theory with spatial econometrics. The chapter examines the econometrics of social interactions in social networks and social learning in urban settings before concluding with a review of the literature on social interactions in economics.

Most primates are intensely social and spend a large amount of time servicing social relationships. The social brain hypothesis suggests that the evolution of the primate brain has been driven by the necessity of dealing with increased social complexity. This chapter uses social network analysis to analyse the relationship between primate group size, neocortex ratio and several social network metrics. Findings suggest that social complexity may derive from managing indirect social relationships, i.e. relationships in which a female is not directly involved, which may pose high cognitive demands on primates. The discussion notes that a large neocortex allows individuals to form intense social bonds with some group members while at the same time enabling them to manage and monitor less intense indirect relationships without frequent direct involvement with each individual of the social group.

Uses simulation models to explore network mechanisms in diffusion processes and protest cycles. The network dimension is taken into account, focusing on three processes: information flows, influence flows, and the construction of joint action. The repeatable and reversible nature of protest requires models of diffusion that focus on the spread of actions and not the spread of ideas across actors. Moreover, while diffusion processes tend to generate waves or cycles of events, not all waves of events arise from diffusion processes. The effect of network structure varies greatly depending upon the nature of a particular network process.

Focusing on interorganizational networks, analysed with reference to the Italian environmental movement in the 1980s, this chapter challenges the assumption that social movements be necessarily decentralized and anti‐hierarchical. The position of different organizations within the environmental movement network is assessed in the light of two criteria , namely network centrality and brokerage. These measures reflect two different types of movement influence, based on the capacity to attract support for specific initiatives (centrality) and the capacity to connect sectors of a movement who hold different stances and worldviews (brokerage). These measures are differently correlated with external indicators of leadership like access to institutions and the media. The chapter also discusses the conditions under which centrality and brokerage positions tend to be occupied by the same actors or by different actors.

Evaluates the contribution of the relational perspective to our understanding of individual activism by contrasting it to traditional rational choice theory. The author exposes the limitations of rational choice reasoning by noting that future expectations are often difficult to calculate and challenging the equation of social ties with prospects of future interaction. Alternatively, he emphasizes the dynamic role of activism in transforming lives and, by doing so, changing the meaning and the impact of the ties in which prospective activists are involved. The chapter shows how discussions of networks and collective action can illuminate our understanding of social conflict and cooperation in general.

The cognitive, psychological and sociological mechanisms underpinning complex social relationships among small groups are a part of our primate heritage. However, among human groups, relationships persist over much greater temporal and spatial scales, often in the physical absence of one or other of the individuals themselves. This chapter examines how such individual face-to-face social interactions were ‘scaled up’ during human evolution to the regional and global networks characteristic of modern societies. One recent suggestion has been that a radical change in human sociality occurred with the shift to sedentary and agricultural societies in the early Neolithic. The discussion presents the results of a focused study of the long-term development of regional social networks in the Near East, using the distribution of different forms of material culture as a proxy for the social relationships that underpinned processes of trade, exchange and the dissemination of material culture practices.

The ability of the US economy to generate new technology industries, such as biotechnology, provides support to the contention that liberal market economies (LMEs) have a comparative institutional advantage in generating radically innovative firms. However, the link between varieties of capitalism and innovation within LMEs has not been systematically explored. This chapter explores the link between institutions and the management of innovative competencies within a successful US biotechnology cluster — San Diego, California. It empirically examines whether national institutional frameworks within the US generate patterns of economic coordination in the areas of finance, employee incentive structures, and labor market organization that benefit firms, and are consistent with predictions of the varieties of capitalism approach. The policy context surrounding the US biotechnology industry is also discussed.