INTRODUCTION TO THE SPECIAL ISSUE ON SOCIAL AND POLITICAL NETWORKS.

• Author: Nordlund, Carl

Within the natural and social scientific domains alike, one of the most successful and useful principles underpinning our collective accumulation of knowledge is the act and art of reductionism. By breaking down larger systems into smaller segments, analyzing and comparing individual, assumedly independent parts in isolation, our understanding, modeling and prediction of both social and natural systems have undoubtedly benefited greatly. This principle has thus, rightly shaped the various analytical tools we have at our disposal, where assumptions of independence of observations is often foundational.

Network analysis and the branch of science it represents can be seen as a countermovement to the above. Surpassing the 'Hobbesession' with individual isolated entities, their properties, and the statistical comparisons thereof, the network perspective draws our attention to what is found in the in-between. With this explicit focus on the bonds that tie parts into larger, interdependent wholes, network analysis in the social sciences guides us back to the 'social', where the patterns of relations or the lack of such--become part of both descriptive accounts, as well as crucial components when modeling social change.

Network-analytical applications in the social sciences have produced outcomes with real impact: from strategic positions of exchange in the networks of global trade, to flow patterns of migration and human mobility, the resilience of international financial networks, the digital and physical infrastructures of organizations, to the mapping and disrupting of terrorist and organized crime networks, corruption machines, and the virulent spreading of fake news and disinformation.

Research applications in this field are thus not only of academic interest, but of significant importance for our understanding, influence, and control over real-world social, political and economic systems, processes, and policy. The theoretical and methodological toolkits proposed by network science are uniquely designed to tackle the interconnectedness and inherent interdependency of humans, cities, organizations, countries, or concepts. By explicitly modeling complex phenomena, and the emergence of complex outcomes at the macro-level from relatively simple behavior or mechanism at the micro-level, contemporary network research enhances our abilities to understand, visualize and control such intricate interdependencies.

This special issue of the Romanian...