209. Identity and altruism in networks
There are two reasons why it may be useful to employ
concepts from network theory. One is to further analyse the notions of bonding
and bridging capital mentioned in the preceding item in this blog. A second is
that it may be useful to consider identity in terms of networks, as I suggested
earlier (in item 10 of this blog).
Personal identity is then associated
with positions in networks, and cultural identity with the structure of networks.
A central feature of position is centrality.
There are different types. One is degree
centrality, defined as the number of direct ties one has. This yields power
of influence. It yields preferential
attachment: the more direct
connections one has the more attractive one is as a contact, and the more new
connections one gets. This is a Matthew
effect: the rich will get richer and the poor will get poorer. That is one
form of the winner takes all
phenomenon that I discussed in item 203.
Betweenness centrality is the extent
that one sits on an intersection of paths between distant points (nodes) in the network. This yields power
of intermediation or brokerage.
The strength
of a tie has several dimensions: duration, dependence (which can be one-sided),
investment in the tie, trust, and the number of activities involved in the tie
A central feature of network structure is of course the number
of nodes. A second feature is the density
of the network: the number of direct ties between nodes. If density is
complete, every node has a direct tie to every other node. Then all nodes have
equal, maximum degree centrality.
Now what would one prefer: dense, strong ties, or
sparse, weak ones? Perhaps one’s intuition favours the first. And indeed: many
direct ties yield access to many resources, and strong mutual dependence and
trust yield stability.
However, there is the famous claim (proposed by Mark
Granovetter) of the strength of weak ties:
high density of the network, high centrality of position, and strong ties also
carry disadvantages. They may tie one down, burdening capacity to deal with
ties and limiting flexibility.
Communities with dense and strong internal ties, and
few ties with other communities, would most exhibit the parochial altruism discussed in preceding items. Personal identity then
is also strongly tied to group identity.
Economically, this yields a danger of stagnation, due
to a lack of variety. Over time, with strong ties cognitive distance will become small, and members have little
novelty to share. For novelty, there should be newcomers to the community, or
there should be outside ties. That requires a limitation of the parochiality of
altruism.
Structural holes are gaps in
network structure: batches of nodes that are internally but not mutually
connected. A special case is the small
worlds structure, clusters with high density of strong internal ties and
only few and weak ties between them. Ties between these batches require and
stimulate altruism going beyond the parish. The internal ties yield bonding
capital and the external ties yield bridging capital.
Those structures are ideal, both politically and
economically. They yield internal cohesion of a community, with a large degree
of trust, allowing for limited contracts, yielding low costs of contact and
room for informality and improvisation. At the same time, economically, external
ties yield impulses of variety to create novelty, and the diffusion and hence
utilization of novelty. Politically, the internal ties allow for communal
democracy, and the external ties yield a basis for the political scale
advantages of integration discussed in item 207.
Perhaps this should be the model for the EU.