Browsing by Subject "Consolidation"

Social network analysis is a powerful tool to describe and explain the dynamics of intergroup relations. Research using political and school networks illuminates the micro assortative mechanisms of social ties that directly contribute to the emergence of macro intergroup outcomes such as polarization and conflict. Yet these studies have not fully explored the ecological insights arising from considering how structural constraints—i.e., demographic distributions and emerging meso-group structures—contextualize tie formation, and thereby produce variation in macro intergroup outcomes. This dissertation examines the impact of higher-level constraints on tie formation and intergroup relations in the two contexts: political polarization in America and enmity formation in Adolescence. Studies 1 and 2 ask where the remarkably high level of political homophily comes from and how such relational antecedents affect opinion polarization. Drawing on macrosociological theory of network formation, I use agent-based modeling and the data from the American National Election Surveys to show the pivotal role that sociodemographic consolidation—the correlation between social positions across multiple dimensions—plays in the rise of political homophily in networks and the amplification of the echo chamber effects. Study 3 asks whether racial segregation is directly linked to conflict in schools. Constructing a unified model of friendship and enmity formation on network data collected in a racially diverse middle school, I find that the racial segregation-conflict link is not a direct one but complicated by status-group processes. Racial differences segregate friendships, but conflict is mainly triggered by the status demarcation between members and outsiders of “leading crowds” within racial groups. Combined, these three studies find that the contextual properties—consolidation and groups—condition the rates and effects of micro homophily that shape variation in intergroup conflict. In conclusion, I discuss how my contextual approach contributes to our understanding of intergroup relations in each of the substantive fields of study.

How do dictators amass personal control to become autocrats? In particular, how do seemingly weak leaders dismantle established power structures to create a centralised authority under their control? My book project, Trajectories of Consolidation explores tactics used by dictators to undercut elite constraints and ultimately concentrate power under their own control. According leading explanations for the emergence of personalist leaders, the success of leaders in consolidating power is a result of the failure of elites to constrain and stop them, ignoring the leader’s strategic choices. Relying on these explanations would suggest that a leader’s unexpected ascent is a product of luck and negligence by his competitors.

But dictators play chess, not blackjack. While there is no doubt that luck has some hand in the murky world of dictatorships, leaders also must continuously wrestle with the strategic puzzle inherent in trying to wrest power from strong elites. The framework proposed in my dissertation suggests an alternative mechanism: rather than being the failure of elites, the successful consolidation of leaders is possible due to a gradual strategy of piecemeal power seizures. As when seeking a checkmate in chess, consolidation of power requires a sequence of strategic moves to achieve one’s goal. Each move serves an immediate purpose and also opens up new strategies. Whether a dictator is carefully advancing his position or merely capitalising on a lucky break, in all cases he is acting in the moment in order to make new and more potent strategic moves available in the future, always trying to enable the final checkmate.

According leading explanations for the emergence of personalist leaders, the success of leaders in consolidating power is a result of the failure of elites to constrain and stop them. However, this fails to account for the emergence of authoritarian leaders even in the face of established power structures and strong elites, and ignores the strategic choices of leaders. I propose an alternative mechanism: rather than being the failure of elites, the successful consolidation of leaders is possible due to a gradual strategy of piecemeal power seizures, a process which I term the logic of strategic path dependence. Dictators utilise sequential strategies, each furthering immediate aims while enabling potent future moves, akin to advancing towards a checkmate in chess. To show evidence of strategic path dependence, I develop a framework of three main strategies of consolidation used by leaders to accumulate and create a novel dataset of 386 authoritarian leaders and their use of consolidation over the time period of 1946 to 2004. Using a Markov transition model, my analysis reveals obvious path dependence between strategies used by leaders, more than can be attributed solely to external contextual factors.