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Sharpen your tools -- How to formulate a question -- How do you choose a site? -- Talking to people -- Hanging out -- Ethics in research -- Comparing -- Dealing with documents -- Interpreting it and writing it up

Main description: Social Structures is a book that examines how structural forms spontaneously arise from social relationships. Offering major insights into the building blocks of social life, it identifies which locally emergent structures have the capacity to grow into larger ones and shows how structural tendencies associated with smaller structures shape and constrain patterns of larger structures. The book then investigates the role such structures have played in the emergence of the modern nation-state. Bringing together the latest findings in sociology, anthropology, political science, and history, John Levi Martin traces how sets of interpersonal relationships become ordered in different ways to form structures. He looks at a range of social structures, from smaller ones like families and street gangs to larger ones such as communes and, ultimately, nation-states. He finds that the relationships best suited to forming larger structures are those that thrive in conditions of inequality; that are incomplete and as sparse as possible, and thereby avoid the problem of completion in which interacting members are required to establish too many relationships; and that abhor transitivity rather than assuming it. Social Structures argues that these "patronage" relationships, which often serve as means of loose coordination in the absence of strong states, are nevertheless the scaffolding of the social structures most distinctive to the modern state, namely the command army and the political party.

Abstract
A rare set of data on a changing social network of personalities, drawn by a sufferer of Multiple Personality Disorder are investigated using random graph theory. The key features guiding the patient's production of these wholly delusional networks, features which define her "schema" of social network, are derived by fitting a family of nested distributions. From this, we can derive a tentative hypothesis of how the laity may understand the logic of social networks, a hypothesis that is consonant with other forms of informal evidence.

Political ideology has been a confusing topic for social analysts, and those who attempted to eschew judgmental reductions of others' conceptions and develop a non-polemical political psychology found ideology behaving in ways that defeated their theories of political reasoning. I argue that political ideology can best be understood as actors' theorization of their own position, and available strategies, in a political field. ; La ideología política ha sido un tema confuso para los investigadores sociales y para aquellos que intentan evitar juzgar las limitaciones de otras concepciones y desarrollar una psicología política no polémica que busque encontrar un comportamiento ideológico que trascienda las teorías del raciocinio político. Defiendo que la ideología política puede ser mejor entendida como una teorización de la posición de los propios actores y de estrategias disponibles en el campo político. ; Le thème de l'idéologie politique suscite la confusion chez les chercheurs sociaux et chez ceux qui s'efforcent d'éviter de juger les limites d'autres conceptions et de développer une psychologie politique non polémique, afin de trouver un comportement idéologique qui dépasse leurs théories du raisonnement politique. Je soutiens que l'idéologie politique peut être mieux comprise en tant que théorisation de la position des acteurs eux-mêmes et de stratégies disponibles, dans le champ politique. ; A ideologia política tem sido um tema confuso para os investigadores sociais e para aqueles que tentam evitar julgar as limitações de outras conceções e desenvolver uma psicologia política não polémica que procure encontrar um comportamento ideológico que ultrapasse as teorias do raciocínio político. Defendo que a ideologia política pode ser melhor entendida como uma teorização da posição dos próprios atores e de estratégias disponíveis no campo político.

Political ideology has been a confusing topic for social analysts, and those who attempted to eschew judgmental reductions of others' conceptions and develop a non-polemical political psychology found ideology behaving in ways that defeated their theories of political reasoning. I argue that political ideology can best be understood as actors' theorization of their own position, and available strategies, in a political field. ; A ideologia política tem sido um tema confuso para os investigadores sociais e para aqueles que tentam evitar julgar as limitações de outras conceções e desenvolver uma psicologia política não polémica que procure encontrar um comportamento ideológico que ultrapasse as teorias do raciocínio político. Defendo que a ideologia política pode ser melhor entendida como uma teorização da posição dos próprios atores e de estratégias disponíveis no campo político. ; Le thème de l'idéologie politique suscite la confusion chez les chercheurs sociaux et chez ceux qui s'efforcent d'éviter de juger les limites d'autres conceptions et de développer une psychologie politique non polémique, afin de trouver un comportement idéologique qui dépasse leurs théories du raisonnement politique. Je soutiens que l'idéologie politique peut être mieux comprise en tant que théorisation de la position des acteurs eux-mêmes et de stratégies disponibles, dans le champ politique. ; La ideología política ha sido un tema confuso para los investigadores sociales y para aquellos que intentan evitar juzgar las limitaciones de otras concepciones y desarrollar una psicología política no polémica que busque encontrar un comportamiento ideológico que trascienda las teorías del raciocinio político. Defiendo que la ideología política puede ser mejor entendida como una teorización de la posición de los propios actores y de estrategias disponibles en el campo político.