Social network analysis and counterinsurgency: a counterproductive strategy?

Ginty, Roger Mac

doi:10.1080/17539153.2010.491319

Cited by 19 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 27 publications

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“…Several scholars have used a network approach to reconstruct decision-making processes and stakeholder intervention in policy domains (Knoke et al , 1996; Svensson and Öberg, 2006; Fischer and Sciarini, 2013). Researching a policy network, via SNA, implies analyzing a policy process via a mathematical abstraction, where relations can be contingently examined with the actors that are involved (Henning, 2009; Ginty, 2010). In that respect the method is conducive to the integration of structure and agency (Christopoulos, 2008), although the theoretical implications of this integration have not been exhaustively explored (Emirbayer, 1997).…”

Section: A Network Approach In Decoupling Brokeragementioning

confidence: 99%

Exceptional or just well connected? Political entrepreneurs and brokers in policy making

Christopoulos

Ingold

2014

Eur. Pol. Sci. Rev.

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Policy brokers and policy entrepreneurs are assumed to have a decisive impact on policy outcomes. Their access to social and political resources is contingent on their influence on other agents. In social network analysis (SNA), entrepreneurs are often closely associated with brokers, because both are agents presumed to benefit from bridging structural holes; for example, gaining advantage through occupying a strategic position in relational space. Our aim here is twofold. First, to conceptually and operationally differentiate policy brokers from policy entrepreneurs premised on assumptions in the policy-process literature; and second, via SNA, to use the output of core algorithms in a cross-sectional analysis of political brokerage and political entrepreneurship. We attempt to simplify the use of graph algebra in answering questions relevant to policy analysis by placing each algorithm within its theoretical context. In the methodology employed, we first identify actors and graph their relations of influence within a specific policy event; then we select the most central actors; and compare their rank in a series of statistics that capture different aspects of their network advantage. We examine betweenness centrality, positive and negative Bonacich power, Burt's effective size and constraint and honest brokerage as paradigmatic. We employ two case studies to demonstrate the advantages and limitations of each algorithm for differentiating between brokers and entrepreneurs: one on Swiss climate policy and one on EU competition and transport policy.

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Section: A Network Approach In Decoupling Brokeragementioning

confidence: 99%

Exceptional or just well connected? Political entrepreneurs and brokers in policy making

Christopoulos

Ingold

2014

Eur. Pol. Sci. Rev.

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“…The combination of bio-politics with technology is particularly revealing about the location of power and the framing of conflicts and the inhabitants of conflict areas (Gregory and Pred, 2007). Securitized biopolitics has been in evidence in Israel/Palestine, Iraq, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka and elsewhere as those capable of technowarfare have collected and used biometric and other data in pursuit of their security agendas (Mac Ginty, 2010b). What is significant from the point of view of this article is that social network analysis and human terrain systems are based on the objectification and subjectification of inhabitants in conflict zones, and on a particular discursive framing of the conflict itself.…”

Section: Proximate Factorsmentioning

confidence: 95%

Routine peace: Technocracy and peacebuilding

Ginty¹

2012

Cooperation and Conflict

130

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This article seeks to unpack the implications of technocracy for contemporary peace-building. It aims to illustrate how the bureaucratic imperative explains much about the ascendancy of certain actors to positions of prominence on the peace-building landscape, and the types of activities that these actors engage in. In line with world polity theory, it is interested in the construction and institutionalization of discourses, understandings, expectations and practices of peace-building. It argues that there has been a ‘technocratic turn’ in relation to peace-building, whereby there has been a gradual but persistent trend towards the application of technocracy in the framing of conflict and approaches to it. Two key claims advanced on behalf of technocracy – neutrality and efficiency – are discussed. The article then argues that a complex mix of structural and proximate factors have reinforced the technocratic turn in peace-building. It concludes by considering the extent to which the discursive framing of conflict by key actors predetermines their conflict response. The article is primarily an exercise in conceptual scoping, though it can also be read as a contribution to the critique of the liberal peace and considerations of resistance and agency in peace-building contexts.

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“…As such, it has been incorporated into both security and policing practices. Thus, for example, social network or ‘link’ analysis has been reported to have been the basis for the identification of targets for drone strikes (Devereaux, 2015; McNeal, 2013), counter-insurgency doctrine in Iraq and Afghanistan (Knoke, 2013; McChrystal, 2011), the capture of Saddam Hussein in 2003 (Hougham, 2005; Reed and Segal, 2006) and the Sri Lankan government assault on Tamil Tiger forces in 2008/09 (Mac Ginty, 2010). Beyond the military domain, SNA has similarly been used for understanding gang activity (Home Office, 2016a).…”

Section: The Network In Practicementioning

confidence: 99%

Against network thinking: A critique of pathological sovereignty

Coward

2017

European Journal of International Relations

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This article advances a critique of network thinking and the pathological sovereignty that it gives rise to. The network is ubiquitous as a metaphor for understanding the social, economic and political dynamics of the contemporary era. Implicitly drawing on an analogy with communications infrastructures such as the telegraph or internet, the network metaphor represents global politics in terms of nodes related to one another through conduit-like links. I begin by demonstrating the widespread nature of network thinking and outline the way in which conventional metaphors structure both thinking and action. I then recreate an episodic history of network thinking in order to demonstrate the key entailments of the network metaphor. I argue that there are four entailments of network thinking: the prioritisation of connectivity; the identification of novel actors; de-territorialisation; and a lack of concern for contiguity and context. The article then outlines the corresponding political and ethical consequences that follow from these entailments, specifically: fantasies of precision; new threat imaginaries; unboundedness; and a failure to attend to culture and community. I contend that network thinking gives rise to a pathological sovereignty whose dual faces can be seen in drone strikes and invasive surveillance. Finally, I argue that thinking beyond the network requires us to foreground the importance of contiguity and context in understanding global politics. This article contributes both a novel theoretical framework for challenging the hegemony of network thinking and an ethical call for greater recognition of the harm caused by pathological sovereignty.

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Social network analysis and counterinsurgency: a counterproductive strategy?

Cited by 19 publications

References 27 publications

Exceptional or just well connected? Political entrepreneurs and brokers in policy making

Exceptional or just well connected? Political entrepreneurs and brokers in policy making

Routine peace: Technocracy and peacebuilding

Against network thinking: A critique of pathological sovereignty

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