Soc 316/Erin Powers/Summer 08
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July 24 Lecture Notes
Groups & networks
So far little attention paid to social structure
– people belong to a variety of groups
– Groups related to social order in complex ways
2 mechanisms by which group membership  social order
Ties across groups
– Simmel
– Granovetter
– Gellner
Ties within groups
– Tocqueville
– Hechter, Friedman and Kanazawa
Simmel: ties across groups  social order
Two patterns of group affiliation
Concentric (based on "organic" criteria) vs. Juxtaposed (Based on "rational" criteria)
Simmel on group membership (see page 296)
Concentric group affiliation
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Based on "organic" criteria
– Initial membership in a group determines membership in all other groups
• Example: Australian aborigines
• Example: medieval Europe
Concentric group-formation
• Individuals do belong to multiple groups BUT these groups are not in
conflict/competition
– Key point: individuals treated as members of groups rather than as individuals
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Juxtaposed group formation
Based on "rational" criteria, such as preference and interests: our choice
Initial social location (family, religion, neighborhood) does not determine group
affiliations
Juxtaposed groups  individuality
"The larger the number of groups to which an individual belongs, the more improbable
is it that other persons will exhibit the same combination of group-affiliations" (296)
Concentric  conformity with initial group
Juxtaposed  individuality
 social heterogeneity
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Soc 316/Erin Powers/Summer 08
July 24 Lecture Notes
Heterogeneity  cross-cutting cleavages  social order
• “Men can only belong to a large society through intermediate smaller groups … Tight
loyalties to smaller groups can be effective in strengthening a larger community if
there are offsetting loyalties… There is no society which does not contain such states
of hostility between its component sections; but provided they are redressed by other
loyalties they may contribute to the peace of the whole. Conflicting loyalties and
divisions of allegiance tend to inhibit the development of open quarrelling, and the
greater the division in one area of society, the greater is likely to be the cohesion in a
wider range of relationships (Gluckman 1955, 24-25).”
Granovetter on weak ties
• The strength of a social tie is a function of amount of
• Social ties are strong, weak, or absent
Strong ties
• The stronger the tie between any two individuals in a social network, the larger the
proportion of the individuals in that network to whom they will both be tied (300)
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Strong ties produce no bridges
A bridge is a line in a network which provides the only path between two points
In a tight network, everyone is strongly linked together and there are few, if any,
bridges to other tight networks
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All bridges are weak ties (303)
In large networks, bridges (in the sense of specific ties providing the only path
between two points) are rare
The role of weak ties
• Removal of weak ties damages transmission probabilities more than removal of strong
ties
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Implications for social order
A community characterized by strong ties will be divided into a number of tightlyorganized cliques
There will be few, if any, bridges between cliques (by definition), so:
Implications, cont’d
Cliques (strong group solidarity)  social conflict at macro level (social disorder)
– Local (meso-level) cohesion may co-exist with societal (macro-level)
fragmentation and disorder
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Soc 316/Erin Powers/Summer 08
July 24 Lecture Notes
Implications (last set, honest)
• Network analysis exploding in sociology…
• Strong ties good for:
– Emotional support & therefore physical health
– Mobilization that requires small numbers but intense commitment (high sacrifice)
• Weak ties good for:
– Obtaining access to resources, including info, jobs, etc.
– Productivity of work groups
– Community building, anti-crime efforts, large-scale mobilization (perhaps even if
costly, due to benefits of accessing a group w/heterogeneity of interest)
– Getting a job (why we’re told to “network”), finding a partner
Tomorrow
• Boat Gellner
• How is freedom of association an antidote to the “evils of equality?” (Why is freedom
of association necessary to democracy)
• What kind of state would Tocque recommend? Similar to Hobbes? Smith?
• According to Hechter et al., why do we join groups? What is the relationship between
deviance of a group and global (societal-level) social order?
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