Mobilization as a Network Problem

The majority of my research interests seek to answer two of the big questions in social movements scholarship. First, I am a sucker for the “mobilization question.” While some scholars have grown tired of this pursuit, I still find great appeal asking why social mobilization occurs during some times and at some places, but not others. Questions like those offer one succinct way to address the difficult theme of collective agency. Second, I am also interested in understanding the underlying organizational forms of social mobilization. For example, once mobilization occurs, do the participants organize in manners that fall back upon existing social divisions in the wider society or do they instead collect themselves in novel ways that reflect their own ideology and tactical decisions?

Ties and Their Turbulence

A funny thing happens on the way to understanding activists’ social bonds; when we interrogate them closely, they flutter away into a whirlwind of micro-sociological turbulence. This essay suggests the importance of theorizing that turbulence.

In recent decades, the most significant advances in conceptualizing social organization have come from network theory. Network theory integrates both the tug-and-pull of social turbulence and the possibility of agency. It offers a general, formal framework for conceptualizing structure, but also allows empirical and theoretical specificity (Emirbayer & Goodwin 1994:1418). The study of social movements has been at the forefront of those advances (Bearman 1993; Gould 1991), and we now know much more about the mechanisms through which networks influence larger patterns of mobilization (McAdam & Paulsen 1993; McAdam, Tarrow, & Tilly 2001; Diani & McAdam 2003). However, the mandate to identify mechanisms in social ties always references the broader explanatory level. It seeks inroads only into how ties “matter” and “work” to produce broader outcomes.

Pamela Oliver’s McCarthy Lecture: The Ethnic Dimensions

A recent mobilizing ideas post showed Dr. Pamela Oliver receiving the McCarthy award.

Some of you may have noticed that she was standing in front of a Power Point presentation and, like me, you may have wondered about the content of the lecture.

Dr. Oliver has kindly provided a summary of the lecture, which I have posted below, and has provided a link to her presentation slides (all 138
!).