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Networks and religion : ties that bind, loose, build-up, and tear down
Everton S., Cambridge University Press, New York, NY, 2018. 412 pp. Type: Book (978-1-108404-07-5)
Date Reviewed: Sep 22 2020

Social network analysis (SNA) is an increasingly important tool for social science. By focusing on the links among people and organizations, it addresses the “social” aspect of social science much better than statistics based on population averages, variances, and correlation coefficients. It has been greatly facilitated in recent years by the spread of inexpensive, powerful computers and the proliferation of data on relations among people, provided by social media. As a result, students have a wide choice of textbooks on SNA, while literature applying SNA to specific social problems is also proliferating.

This volume combines an introduction to SNA with substantive insights into the sociology of religion. As the title suggests, its domain is the sociological study of religion, and it includes both extensive reviews of previous work in this area and contributions by the author and his colleagues. But it does not assume that the reader understands SNA. Instead, after a concise but accessible introduction to the tools and data underlying SNA, it introduces different methods in successive chapters, so the reader is exposed to a growing toolbox while learning more about the different facets of the sociology of religion.

The main body of the book consists of eight chapters. The first two chapters introduce different approaches to studying religion from the perspective of the social sciences and the basics of SNA. The second chapter briefly introduces all of the tools needed, and later chapters discuss two of the five forms of network data (ego and whole networks) in more detail.

The first theme discussed in the book is “ties that bind,” which explores how networks explain the power of religion to unite people into communities. Chapter 3 discusses recruitment, giving detailed examples of two of the three explanatory statistical approaches applicable to SNA data: the quadratic assignment procedure and the exponential random graph model. Chapter 4 explores the commitment of the people within the community.

Chapters 5 and 6 are devoted to the second theme, “ties that loose.” They study how networks diffuse convictions within communities and link them to the surrounding communities. Chapter 5 introduces data deduced from archaeological data, while chapter 6 exploits the exploratory method of topographical analysis and introduces a fourth form of network data gathered using hypernetwork sampling (sampling relations among organizations via a random sample of people in them).

To develop the third theme, “ties that build up,” chapter 7 discusses different categories of tradition (for example, church, sect, or new religious movement) that SNA can help distinguish, while chapter 8 explores correlations between these network structures and the well-being of the members of these movements. Both chapters continue to illustrate topographical analysis in the context of ego network data, which is extended in chapter 8 with the fifth form of data: simulated data.

The fourth theme, “ties that tear down,” is particularly timely in light of the increased use of SNA by law enforcement and defense to understand and manage disruptive behavior. Chapter 9 focuses on the connection between religious groups, while chapter 10 looks at violent behavior toward the society at large. Chapter 9 applies all four exploratory techniques (topography, subgroups, centrality, and roles) to whole network data, while chapter 10 introduces the third explanatory statistical method discussed in the book: stochastic actor-oriented models.

The concluding chapter summarizes the book, and there are three appendices: a vocabulary of key terms, a review of different definitions of what constitutes religion, and a summary of available SNA software. The book has an integrated bibliography through 2017 and a brief index.

The broad range of cited studies makes the book a valuable resource for social scientists interested in the study of religion. At the same time, the first chapter and the second appendix, along with an abundance of anecdotal historical examples, make it accessible to people for whom the study of religion from a sociological perspective is new. The second chapter and gradual introduction of different methods as the reader moves through the book make it an excellent text for an applied course in SNA.

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Reviewer:  H. Van Dyke Parunak Review #: CR147066 (2103-0053)
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