Books
Disrupting Dark Networks
Published in 2012, this book focuses on how social network analysis (SNA) can be used to craft strategies to track, destabilize and disrupt covert and illegal networks. It begins with an overview of the key terms and assumptions of SNA and an overview of counterinsurgency strategies. The next several chapters introduce readers to common SNA algorithms and metrics, as well as provide worked examples from four SNA software packages. The book concludes by considering the ethics of and various ways that SNA can inform counterinsurgency strategizing. By contextualizing these methods in a larger counterinsurgency framework, it offers scholars and analysts an array of approaches for disrupting dark networks. The following link takes you to the book's companion website, which provides links to the various datasets illustrated in the book through its worked examples.
Understanding Dark Networks
Written with two colleagues, Dan Cunningham and Phil Murphy, this book examines how security and intelligence analysts can use social network analysis (SNA) to better understand dark networks with an eye toward disrupting and dismantling them. The first part of the book introduces readers to SNA and how SNA can be used to craft strategies for disrupting dark networks. The next part examines various types of exploratory social network analysis: network topography, subgroup detection, the identification of central actors within a network, brokers and bridges, and positional analysis. The third section considers SNA methods for testing hypotheses (e.g., quadratic Assignment Procedure (QAP), conditional uniform graphs (CUGs), ERGMs (exponential random graph models), and SAOMs (stochastic actor-oriented models). It concludes with a brief chapter on lessons learned.
Networks and Religion
Although most social scientists who study religion agree that social networks play a central role in religious life, few studies draw on measures that adequately capture the effects of social networks. This recently published book (2018) illustrates how researchers can draw on formal SNA methods to explore the interplay of networks and religion. The book's introductory chapters provide overviews of the social scientific study of religion and social network analysis. The remaining chapters explore a variety of topics current in the social scientific study of religion, as well as introducing a variety of social network theories and methods, such as balance theory, ego-network analysis, exponential random graph models, and stochastic actor-oriented models. By embedding social network analysis within a social scientific study of religion framework, Networks and Religion offers an array of approaches for studying the role that social networks play in religious belief and practice.