9/24 Quiz scores

1
9/24 Quiz scores
TO BE UPDATED
F D C B A
2
Two main approaches to micro-structure

• Roles Look at social structure as a set of
  jobs with functional requirements and
  normative expectations.
• Bennys gang can also be analyzed as a set of
  normatively governed roles.
• Network Look at social structure as a set of
  connections of different kinds between namable
  individuals.
• Networks are key to how blood feuds start and to
  how blood feuds can stop.

3
Micro-structure 1) Roles

• A social structure can be analyzed as a set of
  statuses each of which has a pattern of
  appropriate behavior (role). 115-9.
• Appropriatemeans that some kind of sanctioning
  control will be exerted for inappropriate
  behavior .
• Roles are in sets, so that the other roles in a
  given set often exert pressures to behave
  appropriately.
• The society as a role structure was the basis of
  a functional, normative conception of the social
  system.
• The roles and statuses exist independently of the
  person occupying them, as a job in a company
  may exist even if it is vacant.

4
Example a jury trial

• Someone called to jury duty may occupy the status
  of juror at the same time they occupy many
  other statuses (male, student)
• Role strain occurs when the expectations of
  different members of a set are inconsistent.
• Role conflict occurs when the statuses occupied
  by an individual push him/her in different
  directions.
• Functionalists analyze social structure as a
  normatively integrated set of roles.
• Informal structures also have role structures.

5
Debated norms

• Often there is considerable debate about what are
  the real norms that operate.
• A jury trial operates under norms of equality
  before the law, that is blind to class or race.
• Colin Ferguson and Bernard Goetz both shot a
  number of people and both used the defense of
  fear-and-rage. Ferguson was found guilty, and
  Goetz acquitted. Why?
• What were the roles and strains operating on
  DELTA 422

6
What is freedom?

• Americans all support freedom.
• But there are real disagreements about it.
• The Union and the Confederate armies both thought
  they were fighting for freedom.
• In a free society its all right if a few people
  accumulate a lot of wealth and property while
  many others live in poverty. Agree or Disagree.
• How would you answer?
• What variables would affect this item?

7
Examples of role structures and normative
conflict

• The Haqqania madrassa (How they Grow Terrorists)
  is a normatively governed role structure.
• What are possibly divergent interpretations of
  the norms that are basic to that structure?
• What determines what interpretations win?
• Often the main question is not how particular
  people came to occupy those roles, but why those
  roles came to be as they are.
• How did those norms come to be the way they are?

8
Micro structure 2 Networks

• A Network is structure of concrete social
  relationships.
• Think of a network as a set of concrete
  relationships between named individuals.
• While people have different numbers of other
  persons in their networks, an average network is
  around 1000 persons.
• Networks may be more open or closed
• In modern society, most networks are open the
  people in one component of your network (e.g.
  kin) do not know the people in other components
  (classmates, roommates, organization members.

9
Example 1 Sociology professor

• The network
• The ties, of different kinds, are similar to role
  sets.
• Only a tiny fraction of the ties are represented.
• The overlap of indirect ties via one network
  member and those via another is very small, so
  that there are indirect ties to c. 1,000,000
  (1000 x 1000).
• A network of this kind can do many things that
  the kind of network characteristic of a
  close-knit kinship system or a village cannot do.

10
2 studies of the power of networks

• 1. Milgram the small world problem.
• Ask e.g. Omaha farmers to reach e.g. Boston
  theology student by a chain of personal contacts.
• Many letters came through, in a matter of days,
  by chains of less than 5 links.
• There are only seven degrees of separation.
• The small world game works in an open system.
• But there were major barriers of gender or race.
• How open are social ties in the U.S.?

11
2. Grannovetter Getting a Job

• A high fraction of upper level technical jobs
  (especially better ones) were found by networks.
• Because
• Vacancies disappear in a matter of days.
• Networks often transmit intelligence more rapidly
  than organizations or paper.
• A grapevine is an effective search device
• But Networks tend to be biased and unequal.

12
Example 2) a terrorist network

• The network of 9/11
• Note some characteristics
• Only a small number of the total ties of the
  parties are represented.
• It is open and redundant eliminating members
  would not destroy it.
• It is closed and segmented few people can
  incriminate more than a few people.

13
Analysis Americas Secret Weapon

• Steward argues
• It takes a network to beat a network.
• A football team cant defeat a soccer team.
• The example of Blackhawk down is part net.
• In a netwar, firepower, taking leaders, taking
  territory, or retaliation has almost no effect.
  They can be counterproductive.

14
Al Qaeda as a SPIN

• Segmented a cellular structure such that
  components can work secretly and independently.
• Polycentric no center to kill
• Ideologically integrated high levels of trust
  and social integration. Most direct attacks
  merely increase ideological fervor.
• Networks (We need to understand them.)

15
Secret weapon?

1. Independent, autonomous opposed SPINs (I.e.
   Elliot Ness strategies)
2. Hackers are a precious national resource.
3. We must understand network dynamics and their
   relations to home structures.
4. Only an open society that really understands the
   enemy can win the battle of the narrative (which
   Steward says we have been loosing.) (How open is
   the intellectual system in the US?)

16
In thinking about winning the War of the story

• we may need to make an open society and the rule
  of law more real than it is.
• Durkheims concept of organic solidary was
  tested in the Dreyfus Affaire
• Dreyfus was a Jew falsely accused of treason. It
  was a case of profiling.
• Some people argued that supporting the military
  courts was patriotic duty.
• Durkheim argued that everyone in the society had
  to believe the law protects them.