Local Processes of National Corruption: Elite Linkages and Their Effects on Poor People in India

This paper provides a bottom–up view of national corruption in India and presents a framework of corruption involving three actors: bureaucrat, politician and legitimate claimant. The paper then focuses on the public service provision of social security in an Indian village and the role of elites in perpetuating the corrupt practices to access this public provision. This study is based on an extensive fieldwork and uses network data. First, I show that the political elite bridges the ‘structural hole’ between the institutions of state and society, have the advantage of information, referrals and are the main beneficiary of local corrupt practices. Second, factional politics is carried out through the use of corruption and it results in exclusion of the poor persons from the welfare rights to which they are entitled. The paper also explores how the local processes of corruption interact with state-level processes and shows how protest against corruption is silenced.     

Political Opportunities and Local Contingencies in Mass Crime Participation: Personal Experiences by Former Serbian Militiamen

Participation in mass crime is often approached from a top-down perspective that centralizes the actions of the masses under the order of elites and leaders. While there is some evidence to support this approach, a more complete assessment of participation in mass crime must also consider the grassroots contingencies that unite the collective motivation and capacity that induce such actions. Such a bottoms-up approach is developed in this article with a particular focus on the personal experiences of former Serbian militiamen who took part in scenes of mass violence in Croatia and Bosnia–Herzegovina. Interviews with former militiamen illustrate how political opportunities, diverging nationalistic attitudes, proximity to growing violence in increasingly localized killing fields, incentives to participate in parallel criminal activities, and an influence within community networks that were submerged in mass crimes united to legitimize and facilitate their personal commitment to the events that took place in this region during the 1990s.     

Do all the pieces matter? Assessing the reliability of law enforcement data sources for the network analysis of wire taps

Law enforcement agencies rely on data collected from wire taps to construct the organisational chart of criminal enterprises. Recently, a number of academics have also begun to utilise social network analysis to describe relations among criminals and understand the internal organisation of criminal groups. However, before drawing conclusions about the structure or the organisation of criminal groups, it is important to understand the limitations that selective samples such as wire taps may have on network analysis measures. Electronic surveillance data can be found in different kinds of court records and the selection of the data source is likely to influence the amount of missing information and, consequently, the results. This article discusses the impact that the selection of a specific data source for the social network analysis of criminal groups may have on centrality measures usually adopted in organised crime research to identify key players.     

The role of venture capital firms in Silicon Valley's complex innovation network

Abstract

We still poorly understand why Silicon Valley has originated so many breakthrough innovations and large companies. The durability of Silicon Valley's innovative competence over the last seventy years also needs more explanation. The failure of several policy-makers around the world to reproduce the Silicon Valley cluster reveals the misunderstanding of the innovative dynamic in Silicon Valley. This study uses complex network theory – CNT (Barabási, Newman & Watts, 2006; Jen, 2006; Thompson, 2004a) to analyse the complex innovative capability of Silicon Valley and to understand the heterogeneity of agents and the multiplexity of ties that support creation and development of high-tech start-ups. As proposed by Barabási (2002, p. 200), we view the economy as a complex network, whose nodes are companies and whose links represent the various economic and financial ties connecting them. Innovation and entrepreneurship are understood as resulting from the interactions of numerous economic agents.

In a systemic perspective, by definition, the presence of a specific agent in a network induces specific interactions with other agents that could not take place if this agent were not there. Thus, the diversity of agents influences the dynamics of the system. The presence of venture capital (hereafter VC) firms in an innovative cluster opens potential specific interactions with other agents in the network (universities, large companies, laboratories) that determine a particular dynamic of innovation. In this perspective, what is distinctive about Silicon Valley is its complete and robust complex system of innovation supported by social networks of interdependent economic agents in which the VC firms have a specific function. Our perspective examines five different contributions of VC firms to Silicon Valley: financing, selection, collective learning, embedding and signalling. These five functions are different ways for the VC firms to interact with the other members of the complex network of innovation and to support the robustness of the system.     

Social networks and the study of relations: networks as method,metaphor and form

Abstract

Networks have recently become fashionable in social analysis but most of the new network approaches have paid scant attention to the long history of reflections upon the potential of networks as an analytical device in the social sciences. In this paper we chart the developments in networking thinking in two disciplinary areas – social network analysis and social anthropology – in order to highlight the enduring difficulties and problems with network thinking as well as its potential. The first half of the paper explores the uses of network approaches over the past fifty years, situating theoretical and methodological questions in their broader disciplinary contexts. The authors then show how emerging issues from both bodies of work offer the promise of new kinds of networking thinking.     

The Swiss business elite (1980–2000): how the changing composition of the elite explains the decline of the Swiss company network

Abstract

In this paper we analyse the decline of the Swiss corporate network between 1980 and 2000. We address the theoretical and methodological challenge of this transformation by the use of a combination of network analysis and multiple correspondence analysis (MCA). Based on a sample of top managers of the 110 largest Swiss companies in 1980 and 2000 we show that, beyond an adjustment to structural pressure, an explanation of the decline of the network has to include the strategies of the fractions of the business elites. We reveal that three factors contribute crucially to the decline of the Swiss corporate network: the managerialization of industrial leaders, the marginalization of law degree holders and the influx of hardly connected foreign managers.     

International Production Networks,Clusters, and Industrial Upgrading: Evidence from Automotive and Hard Disk Drive Industries in Thailand

This paper illustrates the role of international production networks (IPNs) and industrial clusters (ICs) in the upgrading process with a view to gain a better understanding of their upgrading experiences. This can shed some light on the ongoing debate regarding the relative importance of IPNs and ICs and their implications for prudential industrial policy. The automotive and hard disk drive (HDD) industries in Thailand are chosen as case studies because their outstanding export performance in the world market in the past two decades suggests their success in industrial upgrading. Nonetheless, these two industries differ in their modes of networking. In the former, industrial clustering has been observed and has reached a level where the local content of a locally manufactured vehicle is approaching 100 percent. For the latter, industrial clustering has naturally occurred and reached a certain level, while IPNs still play a crucial role. This result suggests the possibility of coexistence between IPNs and ICs. The observed industrial clustering in the HDD industry in the later stage also shows that ICs would be a developmental outcome rather than a precondition of technological upgrading. The choice between IPNs and ICs should be a private sector decision, driven by the economic fundamentals.The public sector should focus on strengthening the supply‐side capabilities of local firms as well as creating an investment climate to further promote upgrading activities.     

Interest group networks in the European Union

Interest group networks are crucial for understanding European Union (EU) integration, policymaking and interest representation. Yet, comparative analysis of interest organisation networks across EU policy areas is limited. This study provides the first large-scale investigation of interest group information networks across all EU policy domains. We argue that interest groups prioritise access to trustworthy and high-quality information coming from partners with shared policy goals. Thus, interest organisations form network ties with other organisations if the latter are from the same country, represent the same type of interest, or are policy insiders. The effect of these three factors varies across policy domains depending on the extent to which the institutional setting assures equal and broad organisational access to decision-making. Our empirical analysis operationalises information ties as Twitter-follower relationships among 7,388 interest organisations. In the first step of the analysis, we use Exponential Random Graph Models to examine tie formation in the full network and across 40 policy domains. We find strong but variable effects of country and interest type homophily and policy insiderness on the creation of network ties. In the second step, we examine how the effect of these three variables on tie formation varies with policy domain characteristics. We find that shared interest type and policy insiderness are less relevant for tie formation in (re-)distributive and especially regulatory policy domains characterised by more supranational decision-making. Sharing an interest type and being a policy insider matters more for tie formation in foreign and interior policies where decision-making is more intergovernmental. The effect of country homophily is less clearly related to policy type and decision-making mode. Our findings emphasise the importance of institutional and policy context in shaping interest group networks in the EU.     

The effects of closed-circuit television on crime: meta-analysis of an English national quasi-experimental multi-site evaluation

This article reports results obtained in an English national quasi-experimental multi-site evaluation of 14 closed-circuit television (CCTV) projects in residential areas, town and city centers, a city hospital, and car parks (parking lots). Both police and victimization data were collected before and after the installation of CCTV in target, control and buffer areas, and police Divisions. The results showed that CCTV was effective in reducing crimes in train station car parks but not in city centers or residential areas, seemed to be effective in reducing vehicle crimes (but not other types of crimes), and was most effective when the degree of coverage by CCTV was high and when CCTV was combined with other interventions such as improved lighting. Implications for situational crime prevention theory are drawn. There was no evidence of displacement or diffusion of benefits. It is concluded that CCTV needs to be implemented more effectively, based on an analysis of the crime problem and its causes, and needs to be evaluated using a randomized experimental design.

Policy networks,politics and decentralisation policies in Ghana

Policy‐making is a political process involving a network of actors with varied interests. This article uses policy network as an analytical framework to understand the politics of decentralisation policy‐making in Ghana from the perspective of interactions among interest groups. The article is based on a research study, which utilised semi‐structured interviews and documentary sources in its data collection. It argues that the lack of progress in decentralisation in Ghana can be explained by the politics surrounding government–interest group relations. The article also provides evidence to indicate how varied interests represented within the decentralisation policy networks affected politics and in turn influenced decentralisation policy‐making and outcomes. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.