The network concept has also had signiWcant impact in the study of political mobilization and social movements. Much of this work has been historical. For example, Bearman (1993) analyzed the way in which the Puritan faction in the English Civil War emerged from networks of religious patronage and Padgett and Ansell (1993) demonstrated the way the Medicis’ successful control over the Florentine state was based on the mobilization of a powerful political party constructed from economic and marriage ties. Gould (1995) demonstrated that resistance on the barricades in the Paris Commune of 1871 was based on neighborhood networks.
The social movement literature has drawn extensively on network concepts. Work by McAdam and others (e.g. McAdam and Fernandez 1990) demonstrated that social recruitment in movements often operates through social networks. Other work has demonstrated that the network concept can be used to describe and analyze broader social movement Welds. For example, Diani (1995) uses the network approach to describe relationships between environmental organizations and between environmental activists in Milan. By studying overlapping memberships in underground protest organizations in Poland, Osa (2003) explains how the powerful Solidarity movement emerged to challenge the Communist regime. Diani and McAdam (2003) provide an overview of the relationship between social movements and networks. Closely related work by political scien- tists has been attentive to international networks of NGOs dubbed ‘‘transnational advocacy networks’’ (Keck and Sikkink 1998).
Network approaches have also been used to study social capital. In contrast to economic capital, social capital is conceived of as capital derived from social structure. Network approaches provide a useful representation of this social structure. While much of the best known work on social capital draws loosely on network metaphors, Lin, Cook, and Burt (2001) suggest a speciWc social network approach to social capital.
