Researching

think-tanks
with social
network
analysis

Jordan Soukias Tchilingirian

Overview

1. An introduction to social network analysis

the basics
SNA and policy research
2. My application
What type of network study was this
How did I produce data
Strengths and weaknesses

Social Network
Analysis

The basics

What is SNA?

1. It is not the study of social media or

networking websites (though it is closely
related to this!)
2. It is not a new method roots in early 20th
century soc sci, advances since the 1980s
3. It is not data
SNA is a distinct approach in the social sciences
a relational approach

What is studied

Actors
Can be almost anything (people, animals,
organisations, families, computers, websites and so on)
Represented as nodes or vertices on graphs
Relations
Advice, likes, friendships, kinship ties, commerce,
sleeps with, dislikes, supports any type of relationship
you can think of!
Represented as edges or the lines/arrows on a graph

Department
Friends
and
family

SNA
summer

Different types of
networks

Whole networks
Predefined sample of boundary e.g. all thinktanks in Brazil, all staff of one organisation, all
villages in a certain district and so on
Ego networks
Relations from the perspective of individuals
Sampling follows a similar logic to normal
science
Personal networks and social capital studies

Network data: 2
mode networks

Where we do not know the actual relations

between actors and infer from co-attendance

Network data: 1
mode networks

Where we know the relations between actors

You can make 1 mode networks from two mode
networks

Analysis

Traditional
Positional analysis
Centrality
Network cohesion
Subgroups
Statistical analysis
New
Dynamic and longitudinal
Big data and social media

Data sources

Interviews/questionnaires
Observations/ethnography
Secondary data e.g. diaries/biography,
documents, repositories

Boundaries

realist approaches define the boundary using the lived experience

of participants.
nominalist approaches place an a priori boundary on the network
which is theoretically useful
positional approaches consider the membership of actors to
certain groups of institutions.
relational approaches are similar to snowball sampling

event based approaches require the researcher to set a specific

time (and possibly geographic) limit to the inclusion of actors.

Interview questions 1

Name Generators
the affective approach identifies relationships based
on a certain sentiment such as intimacy or personal
importance to the ego
the normative or role based approach identifies all ties
connected to an ego through a particular culturally
defined role, such as friend, kin, manager and so on
the exchange approach focuses on the flow of
resources (be they material, informational etc.)
the interactive approach is based on the egos contact
with alters within a specified time period.

Interview questions 2

Name interpreters
Questions about attributes
Questions about relations
Who knows who?
Also social capital style questions
These are usually associated with ego/personal network
designs

Doing the analysis

UCINet https://sites.google.com/site/ucinetsoftware/home
(free for 30 days well worth buying!)
Gephi https://gephi.github.io/ (free)
Pajek http://vlado.fmf.uni-lj.si/pub/networks/Pajek / (free)
NodeXL https://
nodexl.codeplex.com/downloads/get/806203 (free, plugs
in to Excel)

Other helpful tools

E-Net https://sites.google.com/site/enetsoftware1/
(free, for personal/ego network studies)
Ego Net http://sourceforge.net/projects/egonet/ (free,
CATI tool for ego and whole network studies)
Also R and Python..AND LOTS MORE!

Starting out

Borgatti, S. P., Everett, M., & Johnson, J. C. (2013). Analyzing social networks. London: SAGE,.
Carrington, P. J., & Scott, J. (2011). The SAGE handbook of social network analysis. London:
SAGE,.
Crossley, N., Bellotti, E., Edwards, G., Everett, M. G., Koskinen, J., & Tranmer, M. (2015). Social
Network Analysis for Ego-Nets. S.l.: SAGE Publications Ltd.
Kadushin, C. (2012). Understanding Social Networks: Theories, Concepts, and Findings. New
York: OUP USA.
Knoke, D., & Yang, S. (2008). Social Network Analysis (2nd ed). Los Angeles; London: Sage.
Prell, C. (2012). Social Network Analysis: History, Theory and Methodology. London: Sage.
Scott, J. (2012). Social Network Analysis (Third Edition edition). Los Angeles: SAGE
Publications Ltd.

Online help

James Cooks YouTube site (follows his undergraduate

class) https://
www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLUNsmFTO5nwm4VJ
QBaO74MF1A8KZfAOi9
Hanneman, R. A., & Riddle, M. (2005). Introduction to
social network methods. Riverside, CA: University of
California, Riverside. Retrieved from
http://faculty.ucr.edu/~hanneman/
INSNA email group ask the world experts (and not so
expert) about all things network related

How I used social

network analysis

My PhD.
British think-tanks and the production of policy
knowledge
A social network analysis of policy intellectuals

Research interests: The rise of thinktanks and.

The decline of the public authoritative intellectual (Furedi,

2006) and the marginalisation of academics in public life and
power (Halsey, 1992; Griffiths, 2009)or the transformation
and the rise of new modes of public intellectualism (Baert,
2012; Bauman, 1989)
A case study of knowledge brokers (Meyer, 2010; Osborne,
2004)
the transformation of expertise (Beck, 1992; Collins and
Evans, 2002)
the move to Mode 2 (social) science (Gibbons et al 1994;
Nowotny et al 2003)
corporate interests in policy making and expressions of the
elite power (Burris, 2008)
The journeys of evidence into policy (Smith, 2013)

Think-tanks located between several

fields/professions

Medvetz (2012, p37)

My Approach

How do think-tank
researchers create
knowledge?
Sub question

How do organisational/ideological
differences between think-tanks
relate to the way think-tank research
is conducted?
What types of knowledge are valued
by the think-tank community?
How do think-tank intellectuals
discover knowledge?

How do think-tank intellectuals enrol

different sources of knowledge into
their intellectual interventions?

Chapter

Approach

Chapter 4 Statistical analysis Quadratic Assignment

Procedure
Chapter 5 Centrality measures
and descriptive
statistics
Chapter 6 Qualitative analysis
focus on hidden
networks and
processes
Chapter 7 Qualitative analysis
focus on the politics
of policy knowledge

A sociology of intellectual
interventions

the networks which make an intellectuals work public and the

controversies they are enrolled into (Eyal, 2010; 2013)
Positioning theory an interest in intellectual teams and looser
networks - both friendly and hostile - that give life to a debate
(Baert, 2011, 2012)
Both focus on products the things intellectuals produce e.g.
books, speeches, papers, lectures (also blogs, art, music.even
tweets!) has an ANT-ish flavour
Emergent networks: relationships which tend to be less formally
structures and visible and which by their nature are interstitial as
they draw disparate actors and institutions together (Kadushin, 1976,
p. 770)

Interventions

An intellectual product locates the author

or speaker within the intellectual field or
within a broader socio-political or artistic
arena whilst also situating other
intellectuals, possibly depicting them as
allies in a similar venture, predecessors of
a similar orientation or alternatively as
intellectual opponents
Baert (2012, p312)

Publication = Boundary Object

1.
2.
3.
4.

5.

Inhabits several intersecting social worlds and satisfy

the informational requirements of each
Plastic enough to adapt to meet the specific
needs/standards of the communities they cross
Butcan maintain a common identity across sites.
Have different meanings in different social worlds but
their structure is common enough to more than one
world to make them recognisable
Key to developing and maintaining coherence across
intersecting social worlds
(Star and Griesemer , 1989)

An example of an interventionand
the skeleton of a network

Funder

Traces of intersecting
social worlds

Academics

Authors
Civil
Servants
Business
Other
research
institute
s
Colleague
s

Boundary and sampling

1

Quantitative element: Think-tanks that were engaged in contesting and

producing knowledge for British social policy. This excluded organisations
that:
specialised in environment, defence, international development,
macroeconomics
had a regional focus or an interest in a specific country within the United
Kingdom rather than national focus (e.g. North West or Wales only)
specifically defined themselves as a pressure group rather than a thinktank or policy research institute
were not established as an organisation in 2005 or had ceased to operate
between 2005-2012
did not write specific policy reports, as opposed to other interventions
such as blogs. This did not mean that organisations with more essay like
policy papers were excluded.
This did not mean the think-tank could not produce policy reports on
specific regions or for any of the devolved parliaments.

Boundary and sampling

2

Qualitative element - similar to quantitative

Approached senior and junior research staff
(or whoever holds these functions)
Aimed to have at least two interviewees from
one organisation (if the organisation is big
enough)

Overview

Mixed method SNA

Quantitative analysis of 1 and 2 mode networks
Qualitative analysis of personal networks
Ethics
Contribution?

Future plans

Re analyse data to focus on

Network dynamics and longitudinal change
Collapsing authorship and advice networks will
we find super nodes?
Finer coding of quant to consider research themes
Widen the sample to capture post 2005 think-tanks
Focus on personal networks from a quantitative and
qualitative perspective