Complexity and Social Networks Blog

The following section represents a "thought experiment", and we are very aware of the fact that we take Rowley's framework and put in a slightly different context, which might not be 100% correct (academically speaking). Now let us assume that the global muslim community is a fairly well connected social network. At a very particular spot in this network, we will have Danish muslim community members interacting with Danish government and private sector entities. We further assume that (a) the number of Danish network entities is very small in comparison to the global network of muslim communities, and (b) Danish network entities maintain only a few ties to the muslim community, while the muslim community is building a lot of ties to Danish government or any other available entities for protesting. In summary, we assume that Denmark has a decentralized position in a dense network of muslim communities. The following figure shall depict this situation. White dots represent Danish government entitites and black dots represent muslim communities. The red arrow represents the origin of the debate between the publisher and the Danish muslim community. Also, see muslim community 11 and entity D. D has never been aware or in communication with 11. Neither is D closely connected to the core entities A, C and especially B. Now 11 is putting pressure on D (see the Danish embassy in Jakarta that was stormed today).

An adapted Rowley framework thus looks as follows.

In his paper, Rowley argues that under conditions of high network density (muslim community) and low centrality of the focal organization in the latter network, the focal organization (Denmark) is in a "vulnerable" position. He further argues that the structure of the community network allows for efficient communication, while "the focal organization is unable to influence the information exchange position from its peripherial position" (Rowley 1997, p. 903). In consequence, the focal organization is not in the position to resist network pressure.

The current situation seems to be pretty much the situation, the framework is trying to predict. While muslim communities are increasingly creating pressure on the Danish government, the country as a whole, currently, seems to have very little means to react and talk to any muslim community or sub-networks. However, also among the muslim community it is getting more difficult to influence the behaviour of entities/groups within the continuously expanding network on this issue.

Again, we would like to emphasize that we have utilized a highly theoretical framework to understand what is going on in the real world. The purpose of this entry is to conduct a thought experiment. We want to reflect on academic network theories by looking at real life contexts.

This blog is a collaborative effort with Alexander Schellong.