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Interpersonal Networks and Democratic Politics

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 January 2011

Anand E. Sokhey and
Paul A. Djupe
Anand E. Sokhey
Affiliation:
University of Colorado at Boulder
Paul A. Djupe
Affiliation:
Denison University
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Extract

Some of the most fundamental concerns about democratic politics involve information—who has access to it, how do individuals get it, and of what quality and type is it? The answers to each of these questions invariably involve other people, and it is for this reason that modern democracy is unthinkable save in terms of social networks.

Information

Type
Symposium
Information
PS: Political Science & Politics , Volume 44 , Issue 1 , January 2011, pp. 55 - 59
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 2011

Some of the most fundamental concerns about democratic politics involve information—who has access to it, how do individuals get it, and of what quality and type is it? The answers to each of these questions invariably involve other people, and it is for this reason that modern democracy is unthinkable save in terms of social networks.

Fully understanding democratic politics requires us to wrestle with the choices and constraints that individuals face as they navigate the political world and acquire political information. By “choice,” we refer to the decisions that individuals make about what environments to inhabit—what neighborhood to live in, what church to join, and what people to befriend. Individuals frequently make those choices for reasons unrelated to politics and then live within the “constraints,” or the range of available information defined by those choices. The distribution of politics in socially defined contexts—geographical or otherwise—then limits subsequent political decisions; for example, the neighborhood may be politically homogenous but dissimilar to the individual, and the trusted friend might be ignorant of politics.

In this article, we consider the choices that individuals make and the constraints that result as we discuss findings from social network research about how citizens (1) form reasoned opinions and attitudes and (2) acquire the resources and motives necessary to participate in public life. We then move beyond the state of the literature to suggest ways to further integrate a networks approach into the study of political behavior. We note the advantages of a more developed networks approach, including linking disparate research traditions, linking different levels of politics, and, ultimately, clarifying what “choice” really means in a democratic society.

THE INFORMED CITIZEN

Combining social and psychological perspectives, the scholars of the Columbia school viewed social groups as independent bases of political information and pitted interpersonal communication against other sources of influence, particularly the mass media (e.g., Berelson, Lazarsfeld, and McPhee Reference Berelson, Lazarsfeld and McPhee1954; Katz and Lazarsfeld Reference Katz and Lazarsfeld1955; Lazarsfeld, Berelson, and Gaudet Reference Lazarsfeld, Berelson and Gaudet1944). Three key refinements to the Columbia approach have produced the rich complexity of findings about citizens and information that we have today. First, instead of assuming the political content of groups from personal attributes (e.g., class or religion), the distributions of relevant political opinions or behaviors have been examined in context (e.g., Huckfeldt Reference Huckfeldt1984; Huckfeldt Reference Huckfeldt1986; Leighley Reference Leighley1990; MacKuen and Brown Reference MacKuen and Brown1987; Putnam Reference Putnam1966; Weatherford Reference Weatherford1982) and, later, directly in individuals' social networks. Second, evolving distinctions between social contexts and networks have opened doors for highly complex, multi-level investigations that integrate citizens into their various information environments (Huckfeldt and Sprague Reference Huckfeldt and Sprague1995). Last, sparked by Granovetter's (Reference Granovetter1973) work on social ties, networks have come to be seen not solely as independent sources of information, but as more or less open conduits for larger information streams (Huckfeldt et al. Reference Huckfeldt, Beck, Dalton and Levine1995; MacKuen and Brown Reference MacKuen and Brown1987).

Importantly, the ongoing development of explicitly political measurements of social units has led to the refinement of our understanding of the mechanisms of social influence (see Huckfeldt and Sprague Reference Huckfeldt, Sprague and Finifter1993). By the mid-1990s, many studies had found a social influence on the vote (Berelson, Lazarsfeld, and McPhee Reference Berelson, Lazarsfeld and McPhee1954; Gilbert Reference Gilbert1993; Key Reference Key1949; Huckfeldt and Sprague Reference Huckfeldt and Sprague1995; Segal and Meyer Reference Segal, Meyer, Dogan and Rokkan1974), but how that influence occurred continued to spark debate. One important tension in studies of vote choice involved the degree to which interaction was necessary for influence. Models based on social cohesion argued that the explicit communication of persuasive information was necessary (Kenny Reference Kenny1998); models patterned on Burt's (e.g., Reference Burt1987) work on structural equivalence (Huckfeldt and Sprague Reference Huckfeldt and Sprague1995) focused on the fact that people are frequently flooded with political cues in their environments, many of which are only passively observed (see also Wald, Owen, and Hill Reference Wald, Owen and Hill1988).

Because networks are distinct from contexts, it has become imperative to know how they are structured and how individuals use them. Several key questions, many of which are still being addressed, have emerged: Are political networks distinct from general purpose contacts? What affects rates of political discussion? What affects the effectiveness of social communication?

Over 25 years ago, the political science literature began to move away from social context measures and focused instead on the measurement of discussion partners and related attributes. Borrowing from sociology, political science surveys began to incorporate “political” name generators to capture interpersonal networks. Interestingly, research comparing these interpersonal networks to “important matters” networks has found only slight differences between the two (Klofstad, McClurg, and Rolfe Reference Klofstad, McClurg and Rolfe2009; Huckfeldt and Mendez Reference Huckfeldt and Mendez2008; for an alternate view, see Djupe and Sokhey Reference Djupe and Sokhey2009), suggesting that core political networks are not special purpose. Many core network members share close familial ties (Mutz Reference Mutz2006; Zuckerman, Dasovic, and Fitzgerald Reference Zuckerman, Dasovic and Fitzgerald2007), and the supply of political discussion partners in a context constrains selection, even when there is a strong preference for a particular type of individual (Huckfeldt and Sprague Reference Huckfeldt and Sprague1995; for an alternate view, see Finifter Reference Finifter1974). In short, considerable research has found that individuals do not perfectly self-select agreeable discussion partners, and according to Huckfeldt, Johnson, and Sprague, disagreement is “the modal condition” in the United States (Reference Huckfeldt, Johnson and Sprague2004, 19; for an alternate view, see Mutz Reference Mutz2006).

THE PARTICIPATORY CITIZEN

Observers have long noted that social organizations constitute the backbone of a participatory democracy (Tocqueville Reference Tocqueville1994 [1840]); more recent work has codified this observation, noting the importance of recruiting engaged and resourceful individuals (Burns, Schlozman, and Verba Reference Burns, Schlozman and Verba2001; Verba, Schlozman, and Brady Reference Verba, Schlozman and Brady1995). Social network research has enriched and qualified this account of citizen participation by conceptualizing political activity as an extension of social relations and emphasizing the flow and content of political information in institutions of adult life (e.g., Djupe and Gilbert Reference Djupe and Gilbert2009; Mutz and Mondak Reference Mutz and Mondak2006).

Early work in this vein modeled political activity in terms of social contagion. Without network measures per se, these efforts found that individual participation is more likely in areas in which participatory norms are conveyed (Tingsten Reference Tingsten1963; Huckfeldt Reference Huckfeldt1979). A natural extension of this logic is that social ties should only affect political activities with a social dimension, but research has only found limited support for this notion (Huckfeldt Reference Huckfeldt1979; Giles and Dantico Reference Giles and Dantico1982; Kenny Reference Kenny1992; Leighley Reference Leighley1990; Zipp and Smith Reference Zipp and Smith1979).

Through the use of social network batteries—and hence measures of information transmission—the literature began to view political participation as being conditional on citizens learning about choices and procedures. Thus, many studies have found that larger, more politicized social networks—which present citizens with more cheap information sources—produce higher rates of involvement (Kenny Reference Kenny1992; Knoke Reference Knoke1990; Leighley Reference Leighley1990; Lake and Huckfeldt Reference Lake and Huckfeldt1998; McClurg Reference McClurg2003; McClurg Reference McClurg2006a). If the currency of political participation is information, then its primary mechanism is political talk, and more political discussion leads to more political activity (McClurg Reference McClurg2003; McClurg Reference McClurg2006a; Mutz Reference Mutz2002a; Mutz Reference Mutz2006).

At the same time, some discussions are more productive than others, which is why additional research has emphasized the importance of discussion with political experts (Huckfeldt Reference Huckfeldt2001; McClurg Reference McClurg2006a; Richey Reference Richey2008). But while it may be rational to seek information from an agreeable expert (Downs Reference Downs1957), individuals are constrained by their social supply and may simply choose to withdraw from political life in the absence of trusted social information sources (Berelson, Lazarsfeld, and McPhee Reference Berelson, Lazarsfeld and McPhee1954; Mutz Reference Mutz2006). Other work finds that individuals seek out information about other recruiting agents, such as interest groups, when faced with disagreement in their social networks (Djupe Reference Djupe2009). Klofstad (Reference Klofstad2007) argues that the effects of political talk on participation are actually due to recruitment.

Finally, it is important to note that social networks affect whether people can acquire participatory resources, as well as the extent to which they apply these resources to political participation. Whereas Verba, Schlozman, and Brady (Reference Verba, Schlozman and Brady1995) find that organizational involvements build civic skills, network research has argued that the social composition of those organizations shapes who is able to exercise skills—in particular, individuals who less closely resemble the majority of group members tend to be shut out of skill-building activities and recruitment into politics (Djupe and Gilbert Reference Djupe and Gilbert2006), a dynamic that affects women disproportionately (Djupe, Sokhey, and Gilbert Reference Djupe, Sokhey and Gilbert2007).

TOWARD A SOCIAL UNDERSTANDING OF DEMOCRATIC POLITICS

As one of the more developed “relational” literatures in political science, the study of social networks has taught us much about how citizens form opinions and enter civic life. However, much can be achieved by addressing remaining descriptive, theoretical, and methodological hurdles. In terms of descriptive challenges, we still do not know very much about how political relationships work, what they look like, and what people discuss. On the theoretical side, one existing puzzle is the disjuncture between established network effects on opinion and participation. To use a very broad brush, vote choices and opinions appear to be formed less by discussion and more by passive absorption of cues from the network and environment, whereas political participation tends to be facilitated by discussion—especially with political experts—that presumably conveys information suitable to support political choice. Finally, from a methodological standpoint, choosing sampling frames carefully could mean increased opportunities to collect more information on social exchanges, collect longitudinal data, and potentially piece together full networks, thereby employing the full strength of social network analysis (SNA) as a theoretical vantage and statistical methodology. We elaborate on these concerns in the sections that follow.

Descriptive Hurdles

The seminal Columbia voting research is primarily remembered for its focus on the consistency of messages and their effects on political engagement—inconsistency of messages (i.e., cross-pressures) promotes political apathy (Berelson, Lazarsfeld, and McPhee Reference Berelson, Lazarsfeld and McPhee1954; Festinger Reference Festinger1957). The notion of cross-pressures has been revived in the last two decades to profound effect, and, building from political theorists' work on deliberative democracy (e.g., Gutmann and Thompson Reference Gutmann and Thompson1996; Habermas Reference Habermas1989), a variety of scholars have investigated the effects of encounters with political disagreement in social network exchanges (Barabas Reference Barabas2004; Conover, Searing, and Crewe Reference Conover, Searing and Crewe2002; MacKuen Reference MacKuen, Ferejohn and Kuklinski1990; Price, Cappella, and Nir Reference Price, Cappella and Nir2002; see Delli Carpini, Cook, and Jacobs Reference Delli Carpini, Cook and Jacobs2004 for a review). In a series of works, Diana Mutz (Reference Mutz2002a; Reference Mutz2002b; Reference Mutz2006) argues that discussion with disagreeable partners produces conflicting effects: it tends to demobilize participants by driving up ambivalence (see also Huckfeldt, Mendez, and Osborn Reference Huckfeldt, Mendez and Osborn2004; McClurg Reference McClurg2006a), but it also helps depolarize views and boost political tolerance.

Different scholars have drawn differing conclusions about the presence of disagreement (at least within the American electorate; e.g., contrast Mutz Reference Mutz2006 and Huckfeldt, Johnson, and Sprague Reference Huckfeldt, Johnson and Sprague2004), which is partly due to the employment of different but blunt measures of disagreement. However, we actually know relatively little about what it means to disagree about politics (Klofstad, Sokhey, and McClurg Reference Klofstad, Sokhey and McClurg2010).

Using a generic measure, politics is an occasional discussion topic for Americans. While recent works have examined dynamic processes of discussion and disagreement (Huckfeldt and Mendez Reference Huckfeldt and Mendez2008), as well as discussion rates with political experts (Huckfeldt Reference Huckfeldt2001), most research efforts have focused instead on the effectiveness of communication. Discussion partners communicate more effectively when the conversational focus is clear, agreeable, and accessible, and when the political context provides abundant political information and motivation (Huckfeldt, Beck, et al. Reference Huckfeldt, Beck, Dalton, Levine and Morgan1998; Huckfeldt, Levine, et al. Reference Huckfeldt, Levine, Morgan and Sprague1998; Huckfeldt, Sprague, and Levine Reference Huckfeldt, Sprague and Levine2000). However, aside from generic items that tap the frequency of discussion and disagreement, we know very little about what political discussion looks like in networks, including what is discussed; the content of political discussion and disagreement; the extent to which discussion is directed versus reciprocal; the extent to which communication is frequent and part of an ongoing exchange versus particular to a time, topic, or context; and how previous patterns of communication affect subsequent discussions, if at all. These unexplored concerns affect the effectiveness of communication, whether discussion is influential, and how political discussion contributes to particular choice situations; additionally, they play a central role in answering such questions as: Can networks help people make “good” decisions? Are networks simple heuristics, real learning opportunities, or both? (Sokhey and McClurg Reference Sokhey and McClurg2008)

Theoretical Challenges

The literature on networks and political participation has largely determined information provision to be a mechanism. Effects of political discussion, discussion with political experts, and large networks are interpreted as helping “people recognize and reject dissonant political views, develop confidence in their attitudes, and avoid attitudinal ambivalence, thereby making participation more likely” (McClurg Reference McClurg2006a, 737). At the same time, the study of network effects on public opinion and the effectiveness of social communication has shown how contextual cues strongly shape perceptions of the network, undermining the simple notion that network discussion effects are the primary concern and suggesting that the passive absorption of cues plays a large role in shaping opinion (e.g., Huckfeldt, Beck, et al. Reference Huckfeldt, Beck, Dalton, Levine and Morgan1998); the former literature extols the efficacy of discussion (the social cohesion model), whereas the latter undermines it (a structural equivalence perspective).

Until now, these approaches have been disjointed upon entry into political science—in reality, they may be perfectly consistent with one another, and a challenge for the next generation is to reconcile them, developing a coherent framework that addresses both aspects of civic capacity and involvement. In part, Mendelberg (Reference Mendelberg2005) suggests a way forward by arguing for a fuller integration of the truly social into social psychology. Although network research has never ignored insights from psychology (rather, it has been creative in its applications—see, e.g., Huckfeldt, Levine, et al. Reference Huckfeldt, Levine, Morgan and Sprague1998), most work has focused on issues of supply, studying discussant selection, communication frequency and quality, and, to a lesser extent, network structure. As we continue to think about the distinct effects of and relationships between contexts and networks, we must press for more attention to the demand side of social network interactions, which focuses on the acceptance of social information. Specifically, these concerns apply to theorizing about the nature of dyadic relations (an under-tilled area in network study) and potentially drawing on research about power differentials, gender, and conflict avoidance.

Methodological Approaches

In Reference McPhee, Smith, Ferguson and McPhee1963, William McPhee published what was to become a fixture of social network research on American political behavior (see also Huckfeldt and Sprague Reference Huckfeldt and Sprague1995; Sprague Reference Sprague and Ostrom1982). His model of opinion formation involves several plausible steps, starting with the reception of new information, the formation of an initial opinion, the testing of the opinion among peers, the re-sampling of opinions (upon encountering disagreement), and the testing and re-testing of the idea among peers until agreement is reached. Overall, McPhee's model combines elements of choice and constraint, and provides the potential to illuminate several thorny problems in network research involving questions of causality and the roles played by motivation and network history (i.e., previous patterns of engagement).

Thus far, no research design has been able to fully test this model, and in a sense, it remains only of heuristic value. But more generally, the problems in testing McPhee's work highlight the complexity of the problems that network researchers constantly face. Researchers cannot back down from these challenges, but trade-offs may need to be made (see the introduction to this symposium). Fortunately, once again, the Columbia scholars offer a starting point: instead of worrying about national representativeness, progress may come from in-depth study in smaller settings.

Networks are nested in contexts, and these overlapping environments influence one another through processes of choice and constraint (Djupe and Gilbert Reference Djupe and Gilbert2009; Huckfeldt Reference Huckfeldt1986; Huckfeldt and Sprague Reference Huckfeldt and Sprague1995; McClurg Reference McClurg2006b). More detailed but perhaps not nationally representative studies may be better able to capture these understudied dynamics. Existing research provides valuable places to begin: information environments affect discussion (Huckfeldt et al. Reference Huckfeldt, Beck, Dalton and Levine1995; Mondak Reference Mondak1995), and individuals use the distribution of opinions in a social context as a heuristic to gauge the opinions of social intimates (Djupe and Gilbert Reference Djupe and Gilbert2009; Huckfeldt, Beck, et al. Reference Huckfeldt, Beck, Dalton, Levine and Morgan1998; Huckfeldt and Sprague Reference Huckfeldt and Sprague1995). Combining this perspective with an understanding of how these processes evolve within the broader context of electoral cycles (Huckfeldt, Sprague, and Levine Reference Huckfeldt, Sprague and Levine2000; Huckfeldt, Levine, et al. Reference Huckfeldt, Levine, Morgan and Sprague1998) and nonpolitical events (Mondak Reference Mondak1995) is critical. In short, our lesson is that we cannot think of networks in isolation, since other forces moderate their effectiveness—a concept that we must remember in empirical work, but which can also be exploited in the laboratory. At the same time, multiple levels of analysis need to enter the equation as we think through the links between individuals and collectives. Networks may provide the missing puzzle piece when it comes to the “miracle of aggregation” (Page and Shapiro Reference Page and Shapiro1992).

Choosing sampling frames carefully—thereby facilitating the collection of more temporal information, more information on social exchanges, and better views of full networks—could move us toward employing the full strength of SNA, in terms of both theory and statistical methodology. While well-executed designs and better methodological techniques continue to yield increasing evidence that interpersonal interaction has causal effects (e.g., Nickerson Reference Nickerson2005; Klofstad Reference Klofstad2007; Lazer et al. Reference Lazer, Rubineau, Katz and Chetkovich2007), there are no substitutes for more detailed data and temporal leverage—these will be the keys to understanding how networks are formed, evolve, and cause political behavior. Sacrificing some external validity may go a long way toward bridging the gap between network science and behavioral political science.

CONCLUSION

In sum, fully understanding choice and constraint means knowing more about the range and depth of interpersonal communication, as well as the construction, reach, and fluidity of social networks. Such knowledge is particularly important at the present moment, when technology is changing not only how individuals communicate and acquire information (Papacharissi Reference Papacharissi2004), but also definitions of citizenship itself (Chadwick Reference Chadwick2006; Sunstein Reference Sunstein2008). A sustained focus on filling descriptive gaps, resolving theoretical puzzles, and addressing methodological challenges will force us to develop more sophisticated designs that meld the best insights from political science with those from psychology and the study of electoral institutions. Together, this knowledge will help us understand why individuals make choices, where those choices fall with respect to the specter of social determinism, and how individual actions produce collective outcomes.

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