Social Movements and

Collective Action
Ma r i o D i a n i
16
This chapter examines the relation between
network analytical approaches and collective
action from two distinct angles.1 First, it intro-
duces the contribution of network analysis to the
collective action dilemma proper, namely, how
embeddedness in networks affects peoples deci-
sions to engage in collective action. Next, it looks
at the emergence of collective actors as the result
of coalitions and, more broadly, purposively built
ties. Here, the focus is on fields, constituted by the
interactions between a multiplicity of organiza-
tions and individuals. I conclude by identifying a
few areas for future research.
While students of social movements and
collective action are increasingly adopting
network concepts and perspectives in their work,
their use of formal network analytical tools is still
limited. Accordingly, this chapter also covers
studies that do not follow the classic quantitative
approach but focus instead on qualitative observa-
tion (a strategy now largely represented even at
the annual Sunbelt conferences). Instead, it
looks far more sparingly at broader theoretical
discussions of the role of networks in social
processes (for relevant examples, see Emirbayer
and Goodwin, 1994; Gilchrist, 2000; Livesay,
2002; Fine and Harrington, 2004).
SOCIAL NETWORKS AND
COLLECTIVE ACTION
Individual effects
Network processes have always been relevant for
analysts of political behavior (Zuckerman, 2005).
However, attention has become massive since the
1960s, when a new generation of scholar (often
with an activist background) found themselves
struggling with the inadequacy of previous
accounts of collective action as driven by
personal pathology and social disorganization
(McAdam, 2003: 281). This prompted an
intellectual movement that stressed how activism
would normally be embedded in a rich texture of
social relations.
1
Several studies ensued, illustrating how
involvement in extensive connections to people
already active facilitated participation (Booth and
Babchuk, 1969; Snow et al., 1980; Stark and
Bainbridge, 1980; McAdam, 1986; Klandermans
and Oegema, 1987; della Porta, 1988; Diani and
Lodi, 1988; Opp, 1989; Opp and Gern, 1993;
Oegema and Klandermans, 1994). Some
suggested that networks mattered most for adhe-
sion to groups that were somehow integrated in
society, while adhesion to world-rejecting sects
would be largely a matter for isolated individuals
(Snow et al., 1980). For others, involvement
in specific networks was most important for
participation in demanding forms of activism,
whether religious or political, whereas more
individualistic, market-oriented, and/or less
confrontational forms of behavior were more
likely to occur without previous connections
(Stark and Bainbridge, 1980; Diani and Lodi,
1988). Embeddedness in social networks not only
mattered for recruitment, but it also discouraged
leaving, and it supported continued participation
(McPherson et al., 1992), with substantial
bandwagon effects (Sandell, 1999).
Evidence on the important role of social net-
works in fostering participation has kept piling up
THE SAGE HANDBOOK OF SOCIAL NETWORK ANALYSIS 224
to date (for a review, Crossley, 2007), with
examples ranging from local communities in
Romania (Vasi, 2004) and Mexico (Holzner,
2004) to university students networks in the
United Kingdom (Crossley, 2008), from peace
(Nepstad, 2004) and civil rights activism (Lowe,
2007) to white power groups (Futrell and Simi,
2004). Most important, however, is the fact that
over the years, questions such as Which
networks do explain what? and Under what
conditions do specific networks become rele-
vant? have been constantly refined. Some have
found previous activism to increase centrality in
interpersonal networks, which in turn facilitated
involvement in subsequent campaigns (e.g.,
Fernandez and McAdam, 1988, 1989). The form
of prospective participants ego-networks, that is,
the distribution and density of the ties between the
actors that one is connected to, also matters. The
number of relevant others, who are already
involved and densely connected, positively corre-
lates with social incentives to join (Sandell and
Stern, 1988). The impact of the context in which
recruitment attempts take place has also been
assessed. Specific political networks have been
found to matter most where countercultural
communities are weak (Kriesi, 1988: 58; McAdam
and Fernandez, 1990). Where alternative commu-
nities are strong, more people are recruited through
personal friendship networks or even through
other channels, including self-applications.
However, we can also find examples of the
opposite situation, in which milieus with fewer
protests see people mobilizing through contacts
developed in contexts that are not directly
associated with political protest. People may be
embedded in settings, ranging from PTAs to sport
clubs, that do not directly promote activism, but
create opportunities for people with similar
presuppositions to meet and eventually develop
joint action (Ohlemacher, 1996). The workplace
has also been found to exert a persistent positive
effect on peoples chances to mobilize (Dixon and
Roscigno, 2003).
Increasingly, researchers have recognized that
people are involved in multiple ties; while
some may facilitate participation, others may dis-
courage it. As such, neither embeddedness in
organizational links nor strong ties to people
already active necessarily predict activism. Lack
of direct ties may be overcome if prospective
participants are embedded in broader organiza-
tional networks, compatible with the campaign or
organization they are considering to join (Kriesi,
1988; McAdam and Fernandez, 1990; McAdam
and Paulsen, 1993). Similar mechanisms may
also occur between people involved in religious
congregations (Becker and Dhingra, 2001; Smilde,
2005).
Over the last few years, it has been increasingly
argued that we ought to look for mechanisms
rather than correlations, that is, we should clarify
how networks really operate and what impact they
have on participation. Kitts (2000) differentiated
between information, identity, and exchange
mechanisms. Along similar lines, McAdam (2003)
identified four crucial mechanisms: recruitment
attempts, identity-movement linkages, and
positive and negative influence attempts. Passy
(2001, 2003; see also Passy and Giugni, 2000)
differentiated between socialization, structural-
connection, and decision-shaping functions of
networks. These functions take different forms
depending on the traits of the organization
promoting recruitment and its visibility in the
public space.
Population effects
The analyses presented in the previous section
treat network location mainly as an individual
attribute, the impact of which is to be evaluated
controlling for education, age, profession, or
status. However, a structural account of participa-
tion requires analysts to look at how individual
ties combine into more complex network patterns,
to affect the proportion of people willing to
contribute to a cause, or the intensity of participa-
tion in a certain population. These questions have
been addressed through both formal modeling and
empirical case studies. Marwell and Oliver (1993;
Oliver and Marwell 2001) used formal models
3
to
challenge Olsons (1963) well-known claim that
only small groups can actually generate collective
action. They emphasized the crucial role of a
critical mass of people (organizers), prepared to
face the costs of starting collective action, regard-
less of the size of the group taken as a whole.
Their simulations also found a strong positive
relationship between centralization of a group and
its members propensity to become involved
in collective action (Marwell and Oliver 1993:
10129), while the presence of cliques had appar-
ently no effects. Kim and Bearman (1997) found
that collective action occurs only if interest in
specific issues and actors network centrality are
positively correlated.
Network heterogeneity also seems to matter. In
highly heterogeneous networks, selective mobili-
zation attempts, targeting specific subgroups of
a population, are more effective than in homoge-
neous networks (Marwell and Oliver, 1992:
13056). This line of argument is consistent with
the more general point that recruitment strategies
differ in how they balance the capacity to address
a broad and diversified group of prospective par-
ticipants (reach) with the capacity to mobilize
SOCIAL MOVEMENTS AND COLLECTIVE ACTION 225
with strong messages a more restricted yet more
motivated constituency (selectivity; see Friedman
and McAdam, 1992).
Explorations of collective action dynamics
from this particular, systemic angle also address
the broader question of why networks ultimately
matter. Some stress that network ties enable
people to calculate the impact of their actions
(Kim and Bearman, 1997). Norms of fairness are
also important in determining collective
outcomes. The denser a network, the higher the
levels of collective action, as people do not want
to be perceived as free riders (Gould, 1993b).
Rates of participation also increase much more
steeply if those who started collective action in the
first place are centrally located in the overall
network (Gould, 1993b).
Gould (1991, 1993a, 1995) pioneered the
empirical study of the relationship between
collective performance and network variables. In
a path-breaking project, he showed that levels of
collective action by different Parisian neighbor-
hoods in the Commune uprising of Spring 1871
were accounted for by organizational and infor-
mal relations between neighborhoods
4
as well as
by nonrelational properties, such as levels of
wealth in the neighborhood, percentage of resi-
dent salaried workers, and percentage of resident
middle-class white-collar laborers.
Peter Hedstrm and his associates also stressed
the link between territorial units and mobilization
processes, yet with an emphasis on diffusion
processes rather than levels of participation. They
found that spatial proximity and the resulting
increased likelihood of personal acquaintances to
significantly influenced the spread of trade union
and social democratic party organizations in
Sweden from 1890 to 1940 (Hedstrm, 1994;
Hedstrm et al., 2000; Sandell, 2001). Edling and
Liljeros (2003) also referred to Swedish unions in
their analysis of the diffusion of new organiza-
tional forms. Expanding this line of inquiry,
Hedstrm et al. (2000) paid special attention to
the role of specific activists (socialist agitators)
in creating a macro network between otherwise
disjointed groups of actors and regions. The visit
of an agitator made a difference along with the
strength of ties between regions, given by
geographical proximity, or the number of social
democratic members in other districts. The
presence of committed activists was also found
crucial to the spread of civil rights activities in the
1960s American South (Andrews and Biggs,
2006).
Insisting on the classic distinction between
strong and weak ties, Centola and Macy (2007)
have suggested that weak ties may actually impede
rather than facilitate complex contagion. What
works at the individual level does not necessarily
work at the collective level. In a rare application to
empirical data, Biggs (2005) has shown strikes to
expand following a power law distribution and a
model he assimilates to the forest fire, again
pointing (as Centola and Macy, and of course
Hedstrm et al. do) to spatial proximity as being a
crucial element in diffusion processes.
Do networks really matter?
The empirical evidence demonstrating the role of
networks in recruitment processes has been
questioned from different angles. Some have
defended the breakdown/malintegration argument,
noting that it only refers to collective violence and
disruptive behavior, not to the broader and less
contentious forms of action that most collective
action theorists include in their studies (Piven and
Cloward, 1992: 3089). Some recent studies
actually stress the relevance of some of the
mechanisms identified by breakdown theorists.
McVeigh (2006) shows levels of involvement in
activist groups of the left and the right in the
United States to be significantly linked to indica-
tors of problematic social integration, such as
ethnic and religious heterogeneity or income
inequality. Anheier (2003) showed the importance
of isolated members, that is, people who joined
without previous ties to already active members,
in the activities of the Nazi party. Or, Biggs (2006)
showed that grievances mattered more than
integration in church networks to account for
individual participation in civil rights protests in
the 1960s American South (see also Snow et al.,
1980; Luker, 1984; Mullins, 1987).
The network thesis would also be largely
tautological, given the spread of ties across groups
and individuals (Piven and Cloward, 1992: 311).
Even when network effects are discovered,
findings are sometimes ambiguous (Oliver, 1984;
Nepstad and Smith, 1999). Rather than highlight-
ing exclusively those cases in which active people
are involved in network ties, analysts should also
look at those cases when networks are there, yet
participation is not (e.g., see Klandermans and
Oegema, 1987; Dixon and Roscigno, 2003).
The growing interest in collective action in
countries with nondemocratic regimes has further
questioned the role of networks in recruitment, as
this is often dependent on public associational
activities that are discouraged if not openly
repressed in those settings. For example, Vala and
OBrien (2007) have looked at the recruitment in
Protestant denominations in China. They have
shown that under repressive circumstances net-
works countless for recruitment than is usually
assumed, and networks are often the outcome of
THE SAGE HANDBOOK OF SOCIAL NETWORK ANALYSIS 226
recruitment attempts rather than their precondi-
tion. Similar indications come from studies of
Islamist activism in the Middle East (Bennani-
Chrabi and Fillieule, 2003; Pedahzur and Perliger,
2006) and in Central Asia (Collins, 2007). The
role of networks is similarly ambiguous in
contexts in which recruitment to a political organ-
ization may be coerced, as in the case of Central
American guerrilla groups (Viterna, 2006).
Similar doubts have been raised in reference to
organizational population dynamics. A study of
the diffusion of civil rights campaigns in the
American South in the spring of 1960 shows
social networks played a limited role in diffusion
processes, as core activists of movement organiza-
tions and news media turned out to be more
important (Andrews and Biggs, 2006). A study of
participation in mass rallies on highly emotional
issues also had the same conclusion, suggesting
that the media play a much greater role than social
networks (Walgrave and Massens, 2000). Looking
at survival rates of MADD chapters, Edwards and
McCarthy (2004) find that, despite the importance
of weak ties, stronger ties emerging from bloc
recruitment mechanisms do not seem to contribute
to organizational survival.
SOCIAL MOVEMENTS, COALITIONS,
AND ORGANIZATIONAL FIELDS
Social movements as networks
Large-scale collective action has always been
organized in network forms (see e.g., Ansell,
2001; Rosenthal et al., 1985, 1997), and the net-
work nature of social movements has long been
highlighted (Gerlach, 1971, 2001; Curtis and
Zurcher, 1973). Recently, Diani (2003a; Diani and
Bison, 2004) proposed a relational typology of
forms of collective action that focuses on actors
different responses to issues of coordination and
boundary definition. Social movements are
collective actors in which coordination takes place
through informal networks between formally
independent actors, who all identify nonetheless
if with variable intensity with a common cause.
They are contrasted to coalitions, organizations,
and communities that are driven by different
logics of action (see also Jackson, 2006).
In many cases, network dynamics remain
purely informal. For example, in the environmen-
tal justice movement of the 1990s, many grass-
roots groups preferred to coordinate through an
informal networking strategy, rather than relying
on the intermediation of the rigid environmental
bureaucracies that had so far secured ownership
of those issues (Schlosberg, 2002: Chapter 5).
Oftentimes, however, a hybrid model of network
organization (Powell, 1990; Monge and
Contractor, 2003) develops, combining elements
of formality with those elements from a loose
network structure. The network organization
model is frequently found among organizations
mobilizing on a transnational scale (e.g., Anheier
and Themudo, 2002; Katz and Anheier, 2007;
Smith, 2008).
Network organizational forms facilitate
alliance building, which in turn has been found
to increase the chances of success for interest
organizations (Laumann and Knoke, 1987: 387;
Knoke, 1990: 208); they also foster the diffusion
of ideas and practices, and reduce the negative
effects of failure in a certain organizational
population (Gerlach, 1971). With the legitimation
crisis experienced by political parties and other
established forms of political representation since
the 1980s, networks are also being regarded as
a desirable, more legitimate, and democratic form
of political organization (see Dumoulin, 2006;
on networks and democratic theory, Hadenius,
2001: chap.3).
On the other hand, although loose network
forms increase the resources available to social
movement organizations, they also raise the
danger of internal conflict, both between different
organizational units and different ideological
factions (Kleidman, 1993: 3940; Brooks, 2004).
Also for this reason, the lives of many network
organizations tend to be shorter and less
stable than that of more bureaucratic organiza-
tions (Anheier and Themudo, 2002: 19293;
Markham, 2005).
Types of ties
While traditionally applied to the study of indi-
vidual recruitment and, more generally, individual
behavior, the classic distinction between strong
and weak ties has also been used in reference to
organizational networks. Within civil society,
weak ties seem to operate mostly as bridges
between different organizational clusters, be they
defined by reference to locality (e.g., Musso et al.,
2006), issues (Baldassarri and Diani, 2007), or
something else. While weak ties better connect
civil society, their bridging functions usually do
not go beyond information exchange or ad hoc
coalition work. On the other hand, stronger
bonding ties may facilitate collective action, but at
the cost of reproducing inequalities within civil
society (Musso et al., 2006) or encouraging
the fragmentation of civil society in non- or
little-communicating clusters (Baldassarri and
Diani, 2007).
SOCIAL MOVEMENTS AND COLLECTIVE ACTION 227
Strong ties have often been conceptualized as
the overlap of organizational exchanges and the
links provided by individual activists and their
multiple memberships (for general applications of
this principle: Simmel, 1908 [1955]; McPherson,
1983; Cornwell and Harrison, 2004). Looking at
how individuals link organizations through their
memberships generates useful insights on the
structure of social movement milieus. Carroll and
Ratner (1996) analyzed networks of multiple
memberships in the social movement sector in
Vancouver, relating different structural positions
to different activists frames and representations.
In their study of the organizational affiliations of
202 leading feminists in New York State between
1840 and 1914, Rosenthal et al. (1985, 1997)
provided one of the earliest and most systematic
treatment of overlapping memberships as
interorganizational links. Access to diachronic
data enabled them to chart the transformation of
networks through different historical periods.
Looking at both local and nationwide organiza-
tional milieus, they were also able to address
issues of core-periphery relations and division of
labor in the womens organizational fields.
Most studies of the duality of individuals and
groups focus on core activists and movement
leaders. Schmitt-Beck (1989) has explored the
connections between central figures in the German
peace movement of the 1980s, and their ties to
churches, trade unions, university, media, and
other established social and political organiza-
tions. So have Schurman and Munro (2006), if in
qualitative terms, in reference to mobilizations
opposing genetic engineering in European
agriculture. Alongside religious identity, cohesive
networks have been found to play an important
role in shaping expectations and ideological
stances of leaders in American evangelicalism
since the 1970s (Lindsay, 2008). From a historical
sociology perspective, Hillmann (2008) has looked
at political and mercantile elite networks in the
English Civil War, while Han (2009) has explored
the role of individual brokers, most notably Paul
Revere, in the American revolution.
Some studies explicitly address the multiplicity
of ties within movement networks. I (1995)
differentiate between visible ties, consisting of
exchanges between organizations, and latent
ties, consisting of the connections created by
activists personal friendships and multiple
memberships. Baldassarri and I (2007) reformu-
late the weak versus strong ties dichotomy in
terms of transactions, consisting only of resource
exchanges, and social bonds, that combines
resource exchange and shared members (see also
Lmieux, 1998). Studying the structure of
the Korean environmental movement, Park (2008)
explores how governance structures (that he
identifies with member overlaps), knowledge
structures (given by shared ideological elements
between organizations) and affiliation structures
(given by shared participation in events) operate
in the same context.
5
Movement structures:
Segmentation and division of
labor within movement networks
Social movement networks may actually take very
different forms. Diani (2003a) has proposed a
typology based on two fundamental dimensions:
network centralization vs. decentralization,
and network integration vs. segmentation. This
generates four types of networks: wheel/star
networks, highly centralized and integrated (see
Diani, 1995, 2003b, and Figure 16.1); policepha-
lous networks, consisting of sets of different
clusters, with variable degrees of centralization, in
which the average distance between nodes is
higher than in the wheel/star model (see, for
example, Phillips, 1991); clique networks,
totally decentralized and highly integrated as all
nodes are adjacent to each other (in reality,
of course, well have most probably 2-clique
networks, as nodes will be unlikely to be
connected to all other nodes); and segmented,
decentralized networks, consisting of different
components, each in turn made of horizontal
dyads or cliques (Diani, 2003a: 30612). More
recently, Baldassarri and Diani (2007) identified a
small-world type of structure for local civil
society networks, with dense clusters of interac-
tion connected by rarer bridging ties and overall
lower levels of hierarchy than one would find in
random networks.
Looking at global network structures and in
particular to centrality measures may also illumi-
nate some aspects of leadership dynamics within
social movements. While network studies of
profit-oriented organizations have long estab-
lished a relation between network centrality and
influence (Brass and Burckhardt, 1993), it is more
disputed whether this might also apply to
networks of nonprofit, often protest-prone, organ-
izations. An early influential account of social
movements actually pointed at their nature as
being policephalous (Gerlach, 1971), or even
acephalous, networks (Gerlach, 2001). Brokerage
roles, bridging otherwise noncommunicating
milieus, seem particularly relevant for movements
operating on the global scale (Smith, 2002, 2005,
2008). Other studies have stressed the relative
centralization of movement networks. Phillips
(1991: 779) showed that centrality, rather than
resources, explained perception of efficacy among
THE SAGE HANDBOOK OF SOCIAL NETWORK ANALYSIS 228
Canadian womens groups. Diani (2003b) found
that high in-degree scores among Milanese envi-
ronmental groups were accounted for by the social
capital created by members multiple member-
ships, while high brokerage scores depended more
on organizational resources. However, looking at
the issue from the perspective of Actor Network
Theory, others (Routledge et al., 2007) found no
correlation between resources and centrality.
But what does generate structural patterns?
Movement networks emerge from discrete choices
that independent actors make regarding their part-
ners in alliances, their privileged sources of infor-
mation, or, in the case of individuals, the
organizations to join and the groups to be part of.
Particular network forms are not, in fact, the result
of deliberate planning but rather of provisional or
contingent choices (Padgett and Ansell, 1993).
What determines such choices that is, the prin-
ciples behind alliance building has been the
object of a lot of work recently (Rucht, 2004; van
Dyke and McCammon, 2010), yet with minimal
reference to SNA tools (see Ansell, 2003).
Practical considerations, related to differences
in issue agendas and time and resource con-
straints, and mechanisms of path dependence
undoubtedly play a significant role in shaping
alliances. Despite the rhetoric on movement
networks volatility, there is substantial continuity
in the choices of partners made at least by the
most important and persistent organizations. For
example, Shumate, Fulk, and Monge (2005) show
that previous ties account for alliances between
international NGOs active on the HIV crisis.
I (1995: 15262) found the same for the Milanese
environmental associations between the 1980s
and 1990s.
Still, neither functional division of labor nor
path dependencies enable us to make full sense of
the structure of movement networks. We also need
to look at homophily mechanisms, or, in other
words, at what characteristics of actors, of their
belief systems and identities, facilitate or hinder
the building of ties. For example, the development
of broad alliances on environmental, gender, or
citizens rights issues may be hampered by the
strength of cultural differences in turn based
on race, class, or again gender running within
the communities that movements are supposed
to mobilize (e.g., Lichterman, 1995; Croteau,
1995). How movement actors represent them-
selves, their adversaries, and what is at stake in
the conflict in which they are involved can also
have multiple effects on the selection of potential
allies, regardless of the political system in which
they operate (Diani, 1995; Lichterman, 1995;
Lavalle et al., 2007).
Socio-demographic processes are often
shaping network patterns. Let us think for instance
of the varying salience of ethnic segregation. The
chances for the development of pan-Asian
collective action in the United States seem higher
when American Asians as a whole are segregated
from the rest of society; if segregation patterns
apply unevenly between Asian subgroups, then
the chances of pan-Asian collaboration diminish
(Okamoto, 2003). Drastic changes of the socioe-
conomic system like those induced by neoliberal
policies may also affect coalition building. For
instance, chances for transnational networking
Figure 16.1 Structure of the Milanese environmental movement, mid-1980s
SOCIAL MOVEMENTS AND COLLECTIVE ACTION 229
may grow while opportunities for domestic col-
lective action may be reduced (Bandy, 2004).
CONCLUSIONS
Over the last few years, network concepts have
gained increasing attention in the study of social
movements and collective action. The contribu-
tion of networks to individual recruitment in
particular has been both widely explored and
critically discussed (Diani, 2004); in contrast,
despite a few exceptions (Phillips, 1991; Diani,
1995; Ansell, 2003; Diani and Bison, 2004;
Mische, 2003, 2008; Park, 2008), applications of
SNA tools to interorganizational processes have
been relatively rare. As a conclusion, I try to
identify a few issues that in my opinion deserve
greater attention.
We need to take more seriously into considera-
tion the spatial dimension of networks, which do
not develop in a vacuum but are embedded in
specific territories (Hgerstrand, 1967). Political
and urban geographers have devoted substantial
attention to collective action processes both at the
local and the global levels. However, most of that
work has been conducted without drawing upon
SNA tools (Cumbers et al., 2008; Leitner et al.,
2008; Routledge, 2003; Routledge et al., 2006,
2007, 2008; Nicholls, 2008, 2009), while
additions to analytical works like Hedstrom et al.s
or Goulds have been far more rare.
We also need to pay more attention to time
dynamics and network evolution. Like in the case
of space, research covering long time spans is
severely hampered by constraints on resources
and, most important, data availability. To date, the
most sophisticated attempt to adopt a diachronic
perspective in the analysis of individual networks
has been Ann Misches (2003, 2008) exploration
of Brazilian youth activist networks from the
1970s to the 1990s. Mische maps the evolution of
networks over time through the multiple member-
ships of different activist cohorts. To this purpose
she provides a pioneering application to collective
action processes of Galois lattice techniques
(Mische and Pattison, 2000), which enables her to
combine information on individuals, organiza-
tions, and events. David Tindall (2002, 2004;
Tindall et al., 2003) has provided another rare
example of research by mapping the evolution of
activist careers (in this case, British Columbia
environmental activists) over time, drawing upon
a three-stages panel study spanning three decades.
A more economic approach than panel studies or
life histories consists of using available survey
data on individual memberships to map, using
two-mode network principles and techniques
(Breiger, 1974; Borgatti and Everett, 1997), or
the evolution over time of relations between dif-
ferent sectors of civil society (see, for example,
Rosenthal et al., 1985, 1997; see also McPherson
and Rotolo, 1996). Available surveys like the
General Social Survey in the United States or the
World Values Survey can be used (and sometimes
have been used: Cornwell and Harrison, 2004)
to this purpose.
As for organizational data, the major obstacle
to diachronic research remains the difficulty of
identifying valid sources of data to chart the
evolution of interorganizational networks over
time without depending on data about core
members. Sometimes, media reports mentioning
the involvement of specific organizations in pro-
test events have been drawn upon to map relations
between those organizations, again following a
two-mode logic of analysis (Bearman and Everett,
1993; Rootes, 2003; Boudourides and Botetzagias,
2007). Archival data have also been dug up to map
interactions between collaborating and conflicting
actors in a variety of historical settings (Franzosi,
1999; Tilly and Wood, 2003).
We also have to pay far more attention to appli-
cations of SNA to the analysis of virtual networks.
Over the last few years, a considerable debate has
developed whether computer-mediated communi-
cation (CMC) is capable of creating new social
ties or simply expanding and amplifying real,
face-to-face ties (on CMC and collective action,
see, among others, Walgrave and Massens, 2000;
Earl and Schussman, 2003; Tilly, 2004: 95108;
van de Donk et al., 2004; della Porta and Diani,
2006: 13134). However, the available evidence
using network analysis tools is still very rare, at
least in the case of social movement studies.
Among the few exceptions are studies of the
links between websites of global justice organiza-
tions (van Aelst and Walgrave, 2004), and of
organizations and activists mobilizing on global
communication rights (Mueller et al., 2004;
Padovani and Pavan, 2009; Pavan, 2009).
Finally, more theorizing and research must be
put into the exploration of the link between
context in particular, its structural, cultural, and
political features and network structures. The
relationship between context and social networks
has only recently gained attention in SNA at
large (Entwisle et al., 2007). In the case of social
movement analysis, properties of the context, and
in particular political opportunities (Tarrow,
1998; Meyer and Minkoff, 2004), are normally
taken as explanations for individual or aggregate
behavior. However, it may also be worth studying
how they may shape interaction patterns. For
example, Stevenson and Greenberg (2000) show
that political opportunities affect actors network
strategies in policy networks. Cinalli and Fglister
THE SAGE HANDBOOK OF SOCIAL NETWORK ANALYSIS 230
(2008) claim that actors mobilizing on unemploy-
ment issues generate different coalitions in differ-
ent European countries, depending on national
peculiarities of collective action, in turn linked to
dominant repertoires and styles of policy making.
Carmin and Hicks (2002) look at the impact of
transnational networks on domestic mobilization
in former Socialist countries.
This logic might be extended to collective
action proper, as the salience of traditional cleav-
ages might affect levels of segmentation within
movement networks and the overall distribution
of alliance ties; likewise, the overall strength of
protest cultures and repertoires could encourage
certain alliances to the detriment of others. Some
studies point in this direction. For example,
environmental organizations in Italy in the 1980s
mostly allied with actors on the same side of the
major political cleavage, and a relatively
integrated movement developed only when the
salience of major cleavages was reduced (Diani,
1995). Two decades later, U.S. peace movement
activists tended to join different sectors of the
peace movement depending on their partisan
loyalties (Heaney and Rojas, 2007); the networks
generated in several European countries by peace
campaigners through their multiple involvements
also seemed to vary depending on the salience of
pre-existing cleavages (Diani, 2009). Other
studies, however, found no relation between
cleavage salience and the structural properties of
civil society networks (Baldassarri and Diani,
2007). Once again, more research is needed
before we can develop more solid theoretical
arguments on this important issue.
NOTES
1 Here I draw on and expand on previous treat-
ments of the issue, most notably Diani (2003a, 2004)
and della Porta and Diani (2006).
2 Pinard (1968); Bolton (1972); Oberschall
(1973); Pickvance (1975); McCarthy and Zald (1977);
Tilly (1978). See Diani (2004: 34043) for a more
detailed account of these early phases.
3 Other systematic attempts to apply formal
modeling to the investigation of collective action
dynamics include Macys (1990, 1991, 1993) and
Heckathorns (1989, 1990, 1993, 1996), as well as,
more recently, Oliver and Myers (2003) and Takacs
et al. (2008). Although applications of formal theo-
ries to the analysis of concrete empirical cases are
relatively rare (Gould, 2003), the works cited above
have actually also inspired empirical research (see, for
example, Brown and Boswell, 1995).
4 Network links between neighborhoods were
measured as the number of residents of district i
enlisted in the battalion of district j, divided by the
overall number of i residents enlisted anywhere else.
Other indicators of linkages included rates of
marriages between residents of different districts.
5 See also Molm and Cook (1995) on the role
of different types of connections in coalition
processes
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