The duality of world cities and firms: comparing networks,hierarchies, and inequalities in the global economy

Much of the research on globalization conceives of the global economy as structured by networks among places, while separately organizational research has examined the role of networks among firms in structuring competition, collaboration, and cooperation. In both cases, position and centrality within the network confers certain advantages and disadvantages, the distribution of which defines a hierarchy. In this article, I explore the idea of dual networks of world cities and firms, then use Breiger's approach to define two such networks: one among 313 world cities, another among 100 advanced producer service firms. Comparison of the degree of inequality in the hierarchies implied by these networks suggest that world city hierarchies are steeper than firm hierarchies (that is there is greater inequality among cities). Thus, even under conditions of footloose global capitalism, place still matters: where a producer is located has more impact than who provides support services.     

Exploring the joint dynamics of intercity internet and corporate networks: a stochastic actor‐based modelling approach

In this article, I show one possible solution to synthesis dynamics in multiple intercity networks. I adopt a stochastic actor‐based modelling approach to explore the co‐evolution of an intercity corporate network of 57 globalized advanced producer service firms across 93 cities, and another intercity internet network between these 93 cities, for the period 2004–2010. Stochastic actor‐based models (SABMs) help to connect interactions among cities and firms on the local scale with empirically observed networks on the global scale. My analysis accounts for the co‐evolution/interdependence among multiple world city networks (WCNs) and associated network changes in individual WCNs with exogenous city‐related covariates and endogenous local network structures.     

Understanding the geographical development of social movements: a web‐link analysis of Slow Food

Slow Food (SF) is a global, grassroots movement aimed at enhancing and sustaining local food cultures and traditions worldwide. Since its establishment in the 1980s, Slow Food groups have emerged across the world and embedded in a wide range of different contexts. In this article, we explain how the movement, as a diverse whole, is being shaped by complex dynamics existing between grassroots flexibilities and emerging drives for movement coherence and harmonization. Unlike conventional studies on social movements, our approach helps one to understand transnational social movements as being simultaneously coherent and diverse bodies of collective action. Drawing on work in the fields of relational geography, assemblage theory and webometric research, we develop an analytical strategy that navigates and maps the entire Slow Food movement by exploring its ‘double articulation’ between the material‐connective and ideational‐expressive. Focusing on representations of this connectivity and articulation on the internet, we combine methodologies of computation research (webometrics) with more qualitative forms of (web) discourse analysis to achieve this. Our results point to the significance of particular networks and nodal points that support such double movements, each presenting core logistical channels of the movement's operations as well as points of relay of new ideas and practices. A network‐based analysis of ‘double articulation’ thus shows how the co‐evolution of ideas and material practices cascades into major trends without having to rely on a ‘grand', singular explanation of a movement's development.     

Opposition to enlargement as a symbolic defence of group position: multilevel analyses of attitudes toward candidates' entries in the EU‐25

Despite the sociological and geopolitical significance of EU enlargement and opinion toward it, extant literature is lacking a theory of enlargement opinion and an examination of opinion in the wake of the 2004 enlargement. This paper fills these gaps by developing a symbolic defence of group position model to explain opposition to the entries of candidate states (as of 2005: Bulgaria, Romania, Croatia, and Turkey) and to examine how these explanations differ for post‐Communist EU members. Results of hierarchical multinomial logistic models of Eurobarometer ( European Commission 2005 ) data from the EU‐25 support the notion that the symbolic nature of enlargement shapes the effects of interests, threat, and other factors on opinion depending on candidates' position in a culturally and historically‐rooted hierarchy of ‘European‐ness’. Attitudes toward Turkey's entry are less shaped by material interests than attitudes toward other candidates' entries, which is explained by Turkey's position at the bottom – and post‐Communist countries' position in the middle – of this hierarchy in the post‐Cold War era. Attitudes toward Turkey's entry are rather a function of the perceived threat that it poses to the group position and identity of Europeans, which is defended by the politically knowledgeable. While the lower levels of threat in post‐socialist EU member countries help to account for their lower levels of opposition to candidates' entries, people in these countries to a greater extent use European identity as a way of symbolically distancing themselves from Turkey. Implications are discussed.