Researching Collective Action Through Networks: Taking Stock and Looking Forward

Abstract

Guest editing a special issue on networks and collective action could be interpreted as a response to the ubiquitous use of these terms in both public and academic discourses. As others have noted, thinking that “networks are everywhere” has become a daily routine (Brandes, Robins, McCranie, and Wasserman 2013: 2). Underpinning such a motto, is the diffusion of new information and communication technologies (ICTs), the Internet and social media in particular. ICTs have become a primary global infrastructure for the construction of relations across individuals, organizations, institutions, contents, and information in all domains. It is also true that recent episodes of contention like the Arab spring, the indignados, and occupy movements have tremendously intensified attention on collective civic participation. Most of this attention flows directly from two considerations. First, these mobilizations created hope for major changes in the worldwide political landscape and led to a serious reconsideration of political programs, authority relations, policy agendas, and development plans, even where narrow opportunities for success existed. Second, the widespread use of networked digital communications in the participatory efforts of these movements—and of many others—prompted widespread reflection on the “diffusion” and “transformation” of collective action dynamics across national borders, as well as across the online/offline boundary. While we are well aware of the current popularity of the nexus between networks and collective action, the motivations for this special issue are to be found elsewhere. The current enthusiasm represents to us a perfect window of opportunity to reactivate what, in fact, is a never-interrupted, long-term reflection on the potentialities of a network approach for the study of collective action. Despite being portrayed as benchmarks of our digital age, neither the tight relationship between networks and collective action nor the broader relevance of networks for our societies are new issues triggered by the development and diffusion of ICTs. The roots of a relational conceptualization of society are to be found in the seminal work of Simmel, and in the practical operationalizations of social environments by Moreno. Also, recent developments outside the social sciences in physics, mathematics, and statistics stress relational approaches (Marin and Wellman 2011, Brandes et al. 2013). Within social movement and collective action studies, a network perspective has emerged in the last twenty years as a flexible and, in our view, powerful tool to analyze the diversity, dynamics, and complexity of collective sociopolitical phenomena. Applications of a network approach are sometimes metaphorical in that they allow a more intelligible rendering of the