Dr Meredith Rolfe awarded a British Academy Small Research Grant

Dr Meredith Rolfe has been awarded a British Academy Small Research Grant for Measuring Social Networks and Political Influence. The project will run from 1 August 2010 to 31 July 2012.

While sociologists have long considered the study of social relationships and social interactions to be at the core of social scientific research, scholars interested in political behavior have often neglected the link between social networks and political opinions and identities. In this study, Meredith will introduce and validate a number of new measures of social network structure, composition and interaction styles onto a large national survey.

The study includes multiple survey waves over a campaign, allowing Meredith to both validate the measures and test several existing theories which link social networks and social capital to individual political, social and economic attitudes and outcomes. A better understanding of the role that social interactions and social relationships play in the formation of political opinions and political identities will shed new light on many of the key democratic dilemmas faced by increasingly diverse and fragmented modern societies.