ALLIANCES, COALITIONS AND NETWORKS

We have noted that formal groups also allow the formation of informal groups within them. Since these groups are informal, they do not figure in the formal structure. But they inevitably emerge in all the formal groups–recent or old–and significantly influence their functioning. It is the identification of such informal groups within a formal group and the manner of their functioning that has been an area of sociological research, popularly covered by the term ‘organizational behaviour’. The findings of such research have greatly contributed to the Science of Management. Informal groups also operate in community settings.

Short-lived Alliances at the Level of Individuals

This distinction between permanent groups and short-lived (ephemeral) alliances is important. Some students of village India focused on factionalism and studied relatively permanent factions, though they were informal in character.

While studying group dynamics in an Indian village, anthropologist Oscar Lewis³⁴ talked of permanent factions. He defined them as ‘small cohesive groups within castes which are locus of power and decision-making’ (1958: 195). Studies in other villages revealed that such groups exist with membership drawn from a number of castes. Also, new alliances are formed for meeting exigencies in which people join from different factions. People get divided on an issue, and those following a common line support each other. But on yet another issue, the supporters or opposers may combine differently. Thus, an individual may simultaneously belong to two different short-lived, that is, ephemeral alliances which may cut across caste lines or even family lines. The latter phenomenon suggests that such alliances are goal-specific and people cross their boundaries. Of course, where the factions are antagonistic such temporal floor-crossing might not occur.³⁵

Alliances occur both at the level of individuals who join to form a short-lived group to meet a particular exigency, and at the level of groups. The best example of this process is offered by the emerging Indian political system.

For a number of years after the attainment of independence, our political system was described as a ‘one-party Dominant System’. The Congress Party at that time was such a dominant party. Those who felt frustrated within the Party moved out to form rival political parties. But being small, and having a limited following, they were initially unable to replace the ruling group. And the larger Party had favourable conditions within it to split into factions, which were designated as ruling and dissident groups. Power alternated between them and they became the functional equivalent of a two-party system.

With the flowering of a democratic culture, the parties emerging outside of the Congress umbrella grew in strength, either as regional parties or national parties. These replaced the ‘one-party Dominant System’ by a new format of coalitions, called ‘Alliances’. Since the last decades of the twentieth century, Indian politics has entered the coalition era.

At the moment, there are two major alliances at work, namely the NDA (National Democratic Alliance) and UPA (United Progressive Alliance). Each of these alliances consists of a number of political parties. While the parties entering such alliances continue to maintain their individual identities, the Alliance³⁶ itself functions as a supra-party group based on a Common Minimum Programme (CMP).

The membership of these alliances keeps fluctuating, and the individual parties maintain their individual identities. The Coalition politics had earlier seen the merger of various non-Congress parties in a bid to form a common front and a common party. Bhartiya Jan Sangh–the key rival party–also joined this new outfit. But this new party–called the Janata Party³⁷–also failed to contain all the merged parties within its fold, and the Jan Sangh constituent came out of it to form a new party with the old membership, and named it Bharatiya Janta Party, or BJP.³⁸

At the time of the 1999 General Elections, the BJP took lead in creating an alliance and decided to fight the elections under this umbrella. This was named the NDA–National Democratic Alliance. It was joined by more than 20 parties who agreed on the CMP and developed a seat sharing arrangement.

In the next General Elections for the Parliament, held after five years, NDA fought the elections with a similar strategy but could not get a winning majority. Its rival, the Congress Party, also did not get a clear mandate, and therefore decided to go for a post-election coalition with a CMP, and endorsed the participation of a number of left-leaning and self-proclaimed ‘secular’ parties. This coalition was named the UPA—United Progressive Alliance.

This is illustrated in Figure 6.3.

 

Figure 6.3 Alliances in the Indian Polity of Coalitions

 

To recapitulate: A coalition is a strategic alliance formation between organizations. following are the key characteristics of a coalition:

• It is an interacting group of groups or of individuals
• It is deliberately constructed by the participating groups for a specific purpose with a Common Minimum Programme (CMP). In the Indian case, both the political coalitions–Congress-led UPA and BJP-led NDA–agreed to work together on the basis of the CMP.
• Such a coalition is somewhat independent of the structures of participating formal organizations.
• Also, it has very little of a formal internal structure.
• It is issue-oriented, as expressed in its CMP. And the participating units have the option of quitting, as also of criticizing individual coalition partners on their actions that are not part of the CMP

Networks

Networks are different from groups and alliances. Since an individual interacts with a number of people who belong to different groups, all such groups are part of that individual’s network. In this sense, no two individuals have the same network composition. In a network, each nodal point has its own range of network ties. Each participant in a network is a centre for his/her network, which spreads like a ‘snowball’. Thus, each person in a particular network has his/her own range of interconnecting links, part of which may be common with any other member of the network.

This is true even in the context of a family. Each member of the family has his or her social network, which is unique in the sense that it cannot be the same even of two brothers or two sisters. While members of the family are linked to each other, their outside contacts cannot be the same. Upon marriage, the daughter of the family enters a new family, that of her husband, and creates extensions of her network in that direction; another daughter of the family will similarly have extensions on the side of her husband. Members of their parental family will surely have relationships with the members of these networks, but the type of relationship will differ: the daughter will assume the role of a wife or a daughter-in-law, or a sister-in-law; but her father will be recognized in her family of marriage as the father-of-the-son’s wife, or father-of-brother’s wife. The status differential influences the nature of participation in any given network. The daughter might also have in her network her friends, or colleagues in the office (if she is working), or co-artists (if she is an artist or an actor), but none of these would figure in the network of her own sister or mother.

With the arrival of Information Technology, new opportunities have been opened up for social networking. The spread of computer culture and the availability of mobile phones means that people are constantly engaged in verbal interactions and are keeping in touch with each other even when they are physically at great distances from one another. The hurdles of geography are minimized by the information highways.

But social networking is used by the new generation of computer-using professionals in a different sense altogether. Sociologist Shiv Visvanathan³⁹ admits that as ‘an old fashioned sociologist one would think it dealt with the excitement around social capital, trust, about entrepreneurship that leverages ties and old affinities’. But this term is part of a new technological patios–jargon–and conveys a different meaning altogether. ‘As a public domain, says Visvanathan, ‘social networking is a new fabric of relationships which has still to find its theorists….’ Somewhat sarcastically, Visvanathan admits that this networking has different sets of rituals. ‘Earlier you met and chatted, now you just type. Hugs and satire have been replaced by virtual poke and hug-me applications … Only time could dictate the character of a friend ….’ Online quizzes and polls now define a social character.

 

Figure 6.4 Role-set of Person B

 

For each of the persons in the network one can draw similar networks. It is possible that Person E in this network might have in his network some of the parties included in this, but also a few others that are not in this. Thus, the network profile of each person treated as an ego would differ. Thus, the network is characterized by a multiplicity of centres.

Way back in 1997, the first social networking site was created and was named sixdegrees.com. It disappeared in the year 2000. Three years later, in March 2003, another site, Friendster, was launched. Then came MySpace in August 2003, followed by ORKUT in January 2004, and FACEBOOK in February of the same year. This new site has become the most popular and the biggest social networking site, with more than 300 million users throughout the world by September 2009; it is claimed that there are on an average 217 friends for a Facebook user. Tweeting is yet another format for networking. Through it, messages reach much faster and throughout the world. Political and corporate house battles are now fought with the help of these innovations, which have changed the very meaning of privacy and secrecy. There are several networking sites in operation. One source lists as many as 205 such sites with varying membership and worldwide spread.

For youngsters, visiting these networking sites has become a major pastime. Conversations take place via these sites and information of all sorts is exchanged. Without going anywhere, the users reach everywhere. Old friends and acquaintances get reconnected, and new friendships are created via friends of friends. There are now sites that function as marriage bureaus. ‘At one level Facebook has a yellow page of memories. The network becomes a minefield of people who you have lost touch with. All one needs is the initiation of rite of being tagged or added on as a friend.’

More important has been mobile networking. In the 1960s and 1970s, a person has to wait in a queue for almost 10 years to get a telephone connection even in the capital city of Delhi. Those with a telephone connection at home at that time were the sociometric stars of their respective neighbourhoods. Today, one need not have a landline, and each member of the family, including the domestic help, moves with a mobile and is available for contact and conversation.

talking of national integration in the 1970s, social scientists spoke of the need for linking the various parts of the country through a rapid system of communication and transportation. That miracle has happened with the advent of satellite technology and affordable availability of the mobile phone. No longer is the mobile a status indicator; persons of all classes now have them. The mobile has helped maintain communication links not only with known people, but has also helped expand the network of interlocutors. SMSs are speedier, though shorter, than postal mail. The connectivity is faster. They have also affected spellings and grammar.

Visvanathan tells us that the ‘Users of networking sites in India number close to 10 million.⁴⁰ But numbers themselves are elusive. About 1–2 million use Indian networking sites like Big Adda, Bharatstudent and vBharat which are basically clones of Western sites.’ The use of these new networking strategies is going to have a significant effect on the personal and social lives of individuals. These, however, remain to be seen.