In this seminar Prof Mario Diani from the University of Trento and ICREA at the Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona will be presenting a paper entitled ‘Comparing urban civic networks: Insights from Britain’.
Abstract
Comparative analyses of urban political civic networks are still relatively rare, and those available are mostly conducted by an “aggregative” rather than a “relational” logic. They focus, in other words, on the distribution of the characteristics of individual and organizational actors rather than on the patterns of relation and interdependence between them. Drawing upon my just published book The Cement of Civil Society (Cambridge UP, 2015), and focusing on civic networks in two British cities, Bristol and Glasgow, my talk illustrates how network analysis can contribute to a more nuanced understanding of local political networks. It shows in particular how the concept of “mode of coordination” may enable us to capture the differences between different styles of collective action.
Bio
Mario Diani is professor of sociology at the University of Trento, and ICREA research professor at the Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona. His research focuses primarily on social movements, collective action, and political networks. Publications include The Cement of Civil Society: Studying Networks in Localities (Cambridge University Press, 2015), Social Movements (with Donatella della Porta, Blackwell, 20062), and Social Movements and Networks (co-edited with Doug McAdam, Oxford University Press, 2003), as well as articles in leading journals such as American Sociological Review, American Journal of Sociology, Social Networks, and Mobilization.