Tuesday, March 19, 2019

Sicilian Meta-Network Essay -- Social Issues, Mafioso Families

Mafioso families prep atomic number 18 interlock structures that are distinct from those in typical hierarchical organizationsthey are cellular and distributed. While most politicians and law enforcement agents hurt at least(prenominal) an intuitive to a lower placestanding of hierarchies and how to affect their behavior, they have less of an understanding of how to raze go about reasoning about dynamic networked organizations (Ronfelt and Arquilla, 2001). It is even much difficult to understand how such networks go out evolve, change, adapt and how they can be destabilized. Clearly social network analysis can be use to the study of underground networks (Sparrow, 1991). However, it would be a mistake to assume that in order to understand these networks we just need to connect the dots and then isolate the key proletarians who are often defined in terms of their centrality in the network. To an extent, this is right, as in the case of bridging members embedded within patron- client networks. However, within covert networks such as Cosa Nostra, this assumption belies the difficulty of connecting the dots in terms of mine vast quantities of information, pattern matching on characteristics for mafiosi who often go under multiple aliases, and still ending up with information the may be intentionally misleading, inaccurate, out-of-date, and incomplete. Further, this belies the difficulty in knowing who is the most central when you have at best only a sample of the network.Finally, and critically, this approach does not contend with the most pressing problemthe key network is dynamic. save because you isolate a key actor today does not entertain that the network will be destabilized and unable to respond. Rather, it is possible, that isolating such an actor may have... ...ertise is critical. This is particularly applicable to Cosa Nostra considering that, according to Gambetta, mafiosi are highly specialised according to specific tasks. (Gambetta 67)Ther e are two key themes rudimentary these results. First, it is easier to determine how to impact the performance or the flow of information by an organization than it is to determine exactly how it will adapt. It is easier to destabilize a network than to determine what new goals it will form or new tasks it will take on. This is a function of our lack of knowledge about the processes of adaptation other than learning. Second, the relative impact of destabilization strategies strongly depends on the underlying organizational architecture, that is, on the meta-network itself. As such, a key interpretation of these results is in terms of destabilizing different classes of networks.

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