Individuals and Their Social Contexts Edited by Bogdan W

Individuals and Their Social Contexts Edited by Bogdan W. Mach, Aleksander Manterys, and Ireneusz Sadowski Institute of Political Studies Polish Academy of Sciences Individuals and Their Social Contexts Individuals and Their Social Contexts Edited by Bogdan W. Mach, Aleksander Manterys, and Ireneusz Sadowski Institute of Political Studies Polish Academy of Sciences Warsaw 2018 This project was financed by the National Science Centre, based on mutual agreement no. DEC-2013/10/M/HS6/00526. Reviewer: Kazimierz M. Słomczyński Translators: Agnieszka Hałas (Chapters 4, 5, 6, 7,) Tomasz Kietzman (Chapters 1, 2, 8, 9, Contributors) Copy-editing: Michelle Granas Technical Editor: Elżbieta Krzewska Index: Krzysztofa Bernacka Cover Design: OWP “SIM” Lithograph: Jean Arp, Sonia Delaunay, Alberto Magnelli, Sophie Taeuber-Arp © Copyright by the Institute of Political Studies, the Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw, 2018 ISBN 978-83-65972-34-7 Typesetting: Ośrodek Wydawniczo Poligraficzny “Sim” 05-077 Warszawa, ul. Orzechowa 2, email: [email protected] Table of contents CHAPTER 1 PEOPLE IN NETWORKS: INDIVIDUALS AND THEIR SOCIAL CONTEXTS Bogdan W. Mach, Aleksander Manterys, and Ireneusz Sadowski 1 CHAPTER 2 THE ANATOMY OF AN INNER CIRCLE—CHARACTERISTICS OF CLOSE TIES IN POLISH SOCIETY Ireneusz Sadowski and Alicja Zawistowska 29 CHAPTER 3 MEASURING INFLUENCE IN POLITICAL NETWORKS John E. Jackson, Bogdan W. Mach, and Ireneusz Sadowski 65 CHAPTER 4 LABOR MARKET OR LABOR NETWORKS? Ireneusz Sadowski 85 CHAPTER 5 CULTURAL PRACTICES AND SOCIAL RELATIONS Aleksander Manterys 113 CHAPTER 6 COMMON OR NOT? CULTURAL PRACTICES OF FRIENDS Jakub Wysmułek 151 CHAPTER 7 THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE PAST IN THE CONTEXT OF SOCIAL RELATIONS AND NETWORKS Andrzej Szpociński 173 CHAPTER 8 SENTIMENTS IN NETWORKS: ATTITUDES TOWARD REFUGEES IN POLAND Jakub Wysmułek 191 VI CHAPTER 9 PERSPECTIVES ON FURTHER ANALYSES Bogdan W. Mach, Aleksander Manterys, and Ireneusz Sadowski 227 CONTRIBUTORS 231 INDEX 235 Chapter 1 People in Networks: Individuals and Their Social Contexts Bogdan W. Mach, Aleksander Manterys, and Ireneusz Sadowski Abstract In this chapter we first present the concept, goals, and significance of our research project. Then we describe the data collection process and the data itself. To conclude, we give a short summary of the subsequent chapters. Keywords: social networks, social context, “People in Networks” In this book, we provide readers with the first results of a project entitled “People in Networks: The Influence of the Social Context on the Individual and its Role in Shaping Social Structure,” which was conducted at the Institute of Political Studies of the Polish Academy of Sciences in the years 2015–2017 and financed by a grant from Poland’s National Science Centre.1 At different times, the following individuals were members of the research team: Xymena Bukowska (Collegium Civitas), John E. Jackson (University of Michigan), Bogdan W. Mach, Aleksander Manterys, Ireneusz Sadowski (Polish 1 The grant “People in Networks: The Influence of the Social Context on the Individual and Its Role in Shaping Social Structure” (National Science Centre, Poland; NCN #2013/10/M/HS/00526). Initial versions of selected chapters from this work were presented during the “People in Networks” conference in Jabłonna (March 31–April 1, 2017). In the preparation of this chapter we have used excerpts from the publication Mach et al (2017). We would like to express our sincere gratitude to the personnel and interviewers of the Public Opinion Research Center [Centrum Badania Opinii Społecznej (CBOS)] who participated in the research project. We are convinced that the success of the “People in Networks” project would not have been possible without their professionalism and engagement: they frequently went truly far beyond the call of duty. For months of hard work on the project we would like to thank Maciej Czerniewski, Krzysztof Janowski, Jolanta Kalka, Zbigniew Marczewski, and a hundred and fifty CBOS interviewers, who prepared, coordinated, and conducted the study, as well as the CBOS administrators, Mirosława Grabowska and Janusz Durlik, who actively supported the project from its onset, always finding the necessary time despite the constraints and responsibilities of their positions. 2 Bogdan W. Mach, Aleksander Manterys, and Ireneusz Sadowski Academy of Sciences), Fiona Steele (London School of Economics), Andrzej Szpociński (Polish Academy of Sciences), Edmund Wnuk- Lipiński (Collegium Civitas, †2015), Jakub Wysmułek (Polish Academy of Sciences), and Alicja Zawistowska (University of Białystok). The first part of the chapter introduces the concept, goals, and significance of the research project; the second describes the data collection process and the data itself; the third and final part is a short presentation of the subsequent chapters. The Concept, Goals, and Significance of the Research Project The fundamental goal of the project was to conduct empirical research on a scale that is unprecedented in the Polish social sciences, and to use respondents comprising a representative sample of the national population so that researchers could also reach people in the respondents’ own social networks—the social surrounding, comprised of individuals linked to the respondents by lasting and significant relations. Starting with a nationwide sample comprising 5,631 addresses of individuals aged 18–75, the research was performed on our behalf by the Public Opinion Research Center [Centrum Badania Opinii Społecznej (CBOS)] from May 7 to July 15, 2016. The conceptual work on the project consisted of planning research in which the “unit of observation” (the source of empirical information), “the unit of analysis” (for information processing— calculations and data aggregation), and the “unit of interpretation” (for theoretical generalizations and use of empirical information) would not be confined to the individual but would rather involve the individual’s personal social network. In effect, the objects of the study were not specific individuals considered as separate atoms, independently of one another (as is often the case with empirical research in the social sciences), but social networks (threads, clusters) comprising a number of people who are connected by way of mutual ties and relations. We hope that this volume and subsequent publications will amply illustrate the benefits of such an approach to the “network paradigm,” which is both a significant challenge for the contemporary social sciences and a potential solution to their problems (Carrington, Scott, and Wasserman 2005; People in Networks: Individuals and Their Social Contexts 3 Crossley 2016; Emirbayer and Goodwin 1994; Fuhse 2015a, 2015b; Lazega and Snijders 2016; Scott and Carrington 2011). In terms of the subject matter, our final objectives are (1) to verify hypotheses on the influence of interpersonal networks on (a) individual attitudes, competences, behaviors, and resources, and (b) social diversification and existing social inequalities; and (2) to develop an empirically grounded theory of Polish society, as a variation of contemporary European “network society.” Although we appreciate the influence of Castells’ concept of “network society” ([1996] 2000) on the contemporary social sciences, we do not share the conviction that new social organizations simply replace old axes of social structuration. The existence of a modern “network society” is predicated upon two fundamental conditions. In such a society, the attributes of personal social networks (1) have a significant and autonomous influence on attitudes, competences, behaviors, and resources, and (2) explain no less of their interpersonal differentiation than those aggregations of individual attributes which in different theories and “poetics” are traditionally called classes or social strata. By taking an interest in networks as determinants of both individual attributes and social inequalities, we strive in effect to go beyond the oppositions of “individual–networks” and “networks–populations,” which are usually considered independently of one another. The current project breaks radically with the model of a society as a cloud of human atoms. It was motivated by our belief that further development of the Polish social sciences required a complex, large- scale study, which from its very inception would be aimed at breaking with the atomistic model with respect to theory, methodology, and empirical praxis. Such a study—the units of data collection, the analysis, and the theorizing—would not be about individuals but about clusters or “bundles,” defined as individuals along with their social milieus or contexts. In this project, “the context” means first of all “personal milieu” or “personal environment”—a network of individuals who are close to each other in a particular, socially important, sense. Alternative analytical specifications of “context as a milieu” are “situation” and “configuration,” which are used in various strands of social theory. Paradigmatically, the last two terms appear equally in Weber’s ([1904–1905] 2001) signature classics (“configuration” as “interlacement of conditions” giving 4 Bogdan W. Mach, Aleksander Manterys, and Ireneusz Sadowski birth to capitalism), Goffman’s situational analysis (1959, 1969, 1974), and Elias’s (1991) “figurations,” as well as in theories by contemporary scholars such as Emirbayer (1997), White (1992, 2002), Collins (2004), and Scheff (1997, 2006). The social context we propose to study consists of persons tied to a given individual by

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