Papers by Anton Törnberg
Distinktion: Journal of Social Theory
Recent years have seen a surge of interest in prefigurative politics, which refers to the politic... more Recent years have seen a surge of interest in prefigurative politics, which refers to the political strategies that model a future society on a micro level and aim to instantiate radical social change in and through practice. While most previous studies have focused on defining the concept and categorizing various types of prefiguration, this paper contributes by investigating under what circumstances prefiguration leads to revolutionary social change. The paper takes an original approach to these issues by turning to transition studies and the socio-technical change literature. This field focuses on the technical equivalence of prefiguration: namely, the relationship between small-scale niche innovations and large-scale technological transitions. Through theoretical discussions and empirical illustrations, this paper presents a typology of five transition pathways through which prefigurative strategies may result in a range of social change outcomes from reformative to revolutionary transformation.
“Wake-Up Call for the White Race”: How Stormfront Framed the Elections of Obama and Trump
Mobilization: An International Quarterly
We investigate how users on a prominent forum for white supremacists interpreted and framed two s... more We investigate how users on a prominent forum for white supremacists interpreted and framed two seminal events for the far-right in the U.S., the elections of Obama in 2008 and Trump in 2016. These cases precipitated dramatic shifts in the far-right alliance and conflict structure. We combine computational methods and qualitative analysis on a corpus of over ten million posts on Stormfront.org to show how movement actors framed institutional changes and constructed them as opportunities for action. We highlight grassroots framing, the collective and contested bottom-up processes through which external events are framed and reframed by online activists and thus shaped into opportunities for action. Our research demonstrates how users shifted from framing Obama’s election as a threat, to framing it as a “victory in disguise,” creating new opportunities for political action through extraparliamentary methods. Similarly, users framed Trump's election as creating possibilities for ra...
Author reply: To PMID 24991676
Current anthropology, 2014
Developing of the future: Scaffolded Darwinism in societal evolution
Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 2014
We sympathize with the project of a synthetic approach for devising a &am... more We sympathize with the project of a synthetic approach for devising a "theory of intentional change" and agree that Darwinism should be central in such a theory. But Darwinism is not the only process of evolution that needs to be included. Evolutionary biology itself has taken such a turn recently, with the emergence of developmental evolutionary approaches.
This article addresses two central—yet insufficiently explored—characteristics of some social mov... more This article addresses two central—yet insufficiently explored—characteristics of some social movements: i.) abrupt and rapid social mobilizations leading to ii.) the construction of novel political processes and structures. The article takes a novel approach to these issues by combining social movement literature and the notion of free social spaces with transition studies, which focuses on large-scale socio-technical transitions. This theoretical integration highlights the co-evolution between free spaces and societal transitions, and it is based upon complexity-thinking, which is essential to deal with non-linear dynamics. A key insight is that to enable bottom-up societal transitions, radical social movements need to proactively develop solid alternatives to existing societal structures, to be ready once a window of opportunity opens. This theoretical approach is empirically illustrated using the APPO-movement in Mexico in 2006. Both scholars and the political elite are often taken by surprise when ostensibly stable and subordinate populations suddenly shift to mass defiance and open rebellion. Social uprisings and collective mobilizations often come suddenly and unexpectedly. Seemingly insignificant symbolic protest events or even rumors may set off avalanches of protests that spread globally and lead to large-scale uprisings. These dynamics are perhaps even more salient today, as information and communication technology and social media facilitate the rapid spread of information across large distances, thus enabling mobilizations to take place faster than ever before.
In this article we present an analysis of the discursive connections between Islamophobia and ant... more In this article we present an analysis of the discursive connections between Islamophobia and anti-feminism on a large Internet forum. We argue that the incipient shift from traditional media toward user-driven social media brings with it new media dynamics, relocating the (re)production of societal discourses and power structures and thus bringing about new ways in which discursive power is exercised. This clearly motivates the need to critically engage this field. Our research is based on the analysis of a corpus consisting of over 50 million posts, collected from the forum using custom web crawlers. In order to approach this vast material of unstructured text, we suggest a novel methodological synergy combining critical discourse analysis (CDA) and topic modeling – a type of statistical model for the automated categorization of large quantities of texts developed in computer science. By rendering an overview or 'content map' of the corpus, topic modeling provides an enriching complement to CDA, aiding discovery and adding analytical rigor.
Evolutionary developmental theories in biology see the processes and organization of organisms as... more Evolutionary developmental theories in biology see the processes and organization of organisms as crucial for understanding the dynamic behavior of organic evolution. Darwinian forces are seen as necessary but not sufficient for explaining observed evolutionary patterns. We here propose that the same arguments apply with even greater force to culture visa `-vis cultural evolution. In order not to argue entirely in the abstract, we demonstrate the proposed approach by combining a set of different models into a provisional synthetic theory and by applying this theory to a number of short case studies. What emerges is a set of concepts and models that allow us to consider entirely new types of explanations for the evolution of cultures. For example, we see how feedback relations—both within societies and between societies and their ecological environment—have the power to shape evolutionary history in profound ways. The ambition here is not to produce a definitive statement on what such a theory should look like but rather to propose a starting point along with an argumentation and demonstration of its potential.
Free social spaces have long been emphasized in the social movement
literature. Under names such ... more Free social spaces have long been emphasized in the social movement
literature. Under names such as safe spaces, social havens, and counterpublics, they have been characterized as protective shelters against prevailing hegemonic ideologies and as hubs for the diffusion of ideas and ideologies. However, the vast literature on these spaces has predominantly focused on internal dynamics and processes, thus neglecting how they relate to the diffusion of collective mobilization. Inspired by formal modeling in collective action research, we develop a network model to investigate how the structural properties of free social spaces impact the diffusion of collective mobilization. Our results show that the assumption of clustering is enough for structural effects to emerge, and that clustering furthermore interacts synergistically with political deviance. This indicates that it is not only internal dynamics that play a role in the relevance of free social spaces for collective action. Our approach also illustrates how formal modeling can deepen our understanding of diffusion processes in collective mobilizations
through analysis of emergent structural effects.
The basic observation that we explore in this paper is simple but, we argue, rich in consequences... more The basic observation that we explore in this paper is simple but, we argue, rich in consequences: societal systems combine two qualities that are commonly referred to as complexity and complicatedness. We address the problem that societal systems remain recalcitrant despite the development of powerful approaches for dealing with both of these qualities. The root of this problem we identify to be that the combination between complexity and complicatedness is emergent; i.e. fundamentally and irreducibly different from either quality in isolation. This means that neither class of such approaches can be expected to work well on their own. But it also means that the obvious strategy of
combining theory for complexity and complicatedness may be much more challenging than envisioned. In short, systems where complexity and complicatedness is mixed ought to be treated as a distinct class of systems. Noting a connection to what has long been called ‘‘wicked problems’’ we hereby outline such a class of systems that we call ‘‘wicked systems’’. We introduce a simple model and heuristic and discuss some implications for theorizing and modeling.
This article combines topic modeling and critical discourse analysis to examine patterns of repre... more This article combines topic modeling and critical discourse analysis to examine patterns of representation around the words Muslim and Islam in a 105 million word corpus of a large Swedish Internet forum from 2000 to 2013. Despite the increased importance of social media in the (re)production of discursive power in society, this is the first study of its kind. The analysis shows that Muslims are portrayed in the forum as a homogeneous outgroup that is embroiled in conflict, violence and extremism: characteristics that are described as emanating from Islam as a religion. These patterns are strikingly similar to – but often more extreme versions of – those previously found in analysis of traditional media. This indicates that, in this case, the internet forum seems to serve as an " online amplifier " that reflects and reinforces existing discourses in traditional media, which is likely to result in even stronger polarizing effects on public discourses.
After a period largely dominated by a bias on language, discourses and the social world, a materi... more After a period largely dominated by a bias on language, discourses and the social world, a material turn is slowly emerging in social theory, emphasizing the central role of materiality and material power. However, welcoming this new theoretical embrace of the social and the material, I argue that there exists a theoretical gap in the materiality literature when it comes to the concept of resistance. Few, if any, scholars have elaborated on what role material agency plays in practices of resistance. This also goes the other way around; resistance studies has been heavily influenced by the linguistic turn and is largely characterized by a preoccupation on immaterial cultural processes, generally neglecting how the material can act back and shape both social relations and practices of resistance. This article elaborates on how these fields can benefit from each other by sharing relevant insights and discusses what an increased focus on the material has to offer resistance studies.
Radical right online discussion groups have grown in importance in the Swedish political landscap... more Radical right online discussion groups have grown in importance in the Swedish political landscape , yet the dynamics of these groups are still poorly understood. Apart from their topical import, these groups provide a unique entrance to grassroots discourses of the radical right movement and the mechanisms for radical nationalist mobilization. In this paper, we present an analysis of the largest current anti-immigrant online discussion group in Sweden by using a combination of quantitative and qualitative content analysis. We argue that this type of social media group needs to be approached as both a " counterpublic " within a wider public sphere and as a " free social space " for social movements. The analysis reveals that the use of external links in the group reflects an active negotiation of frames that both confirm and contradict those of the group, thereby challenging a simplistic understanding of the so-called " echo chamber " dynamics. A form of collective identity can be discerned, mainly through the opposition to various outgroups and through an implicit form of nationalism expressed through the concern of " sacred objects " typically perceived to be under threat.
The basic observation that we explore in this paper is simple but, we argue, rich in consequences... more The basic observation that we explore in this paper is simple but, we argue, rich in consequences: societal systems combine two qualities that are commonly referred to as complexity and complicatedness. We address the problem that societal systems remain recalcitrant despite the development of powerful approaches for dealing with both of these qualities. The root of this problem we identify to be that the combination between complexity and complicatedness is emergent; i.e. fundamentally and irreducibly different from either quality in isolation. This means that neither class of such approaches can be expected to work well on their own. But it also means that the obvious strategy of combining theory for complexity and complicatedness may be much more challenging than envisioned. In short, systems where complexity and complicatedness is mixed ought to be treated as a distinct class of systems. Noting a connection to what has long been called “wicked problems” we hereby outline such a class of systems that we call “wicked systems”. We introduce a simple model and heuristic and discuss some implications for theorizing and modeling.
Evolutionary developmental theories in biology see the processes and organization of organisms as... more Evolutionary developmental theories in biology see the processes and organization of organisms as crucial for understanding the dynamic behavior of organic evolution. Darwinian forces are seen as necessary but not sufficient for explaining observed evolutionary patterns. We here propose that the same arguments apply with even greater force to culture vis-a-vis cultural evolution. In order not to argue entirely in the abstract, we demonstrate the proposed approach by combining a set of different models into a provisional synthetic theory, and by applying this theory to a number of short case studies. What emerges is a set of concepts and models that allow us to consider entirely new types of explanations for the evolution of cultures. For example we see how feedback relations -- both within societies and between societies and their ecological environment -- have the power to shape evolutionary history in profound ways. The ambition here is not to produce a definite statement on what such a theory should look like but rather to propose a starting point along with an argumentation and demonstration of its potential.
Den trådlösa massan-svärmbeteende och kollektiv handling
... Eftersom det vidare tycks saknas en enhetlig teori eller tidigare sociologisk tillämpning i o... more ... Eftersom det vidare tycks saknas en enhetlig teori eller tidigare sociologisk tillämpning i området tvingas uppsatsen hämta teorier och perspektiv från ett flertal teoretiker. Detta kan innebära en viss problematik då det inte är ...
Using Complexity Theory Methods for Sociological Theory Development-With a Case Study on Socio-Technical Transitions
During the last few decades the interest in Complexity Theory (CT) methods in sociology has incre... more During the last few decades the interest in Complexity Theory (CT) methods in sociology has increased, partly as a result of the increased complexity in sociological theory and partly of that these methods have become more powerful and accessible. However, despite this ...
Thesis Chapters by Anton Törnberg
This thesis investigates how the interdisciplinary field of Complexity Science can inform both so... more This thesis investigates how the interdisciplinary field of Complexity Science can inform both sociological theory and methodological practice. Non-linearity and complexity dynamics such as emergence and positive/negative feedback are central in many social phenomena, but have until recently not only been hard to grasp though intuition, but have been just as vexing for our social scientific theories and methods. These phenomena tend to defy deeply ingrained assumptions of regularity, linearity, and proportionality between cause and effect, as seemingly insignificant factors may set off avalanches of change. For instance, as in the case of Tunisia when the self-immolation of a street vender sparked a range of international revolts. Similarly, personalized memes in social media can spread like global electronic wildfires, reaching millions of people in a matter of hours.
Complexity science shows that patterns and system dynamics in complex systems cannot be understood only through the properties of system components, but emerge through the intricate interactions between these components. Complexity science is now a dominant perspective within the natural sciences and has proven useful to analyze complex systems ranging from flocks of birds to the financial market, traffic congestion and emergency evacuations. The fact that complexity dynamics are general and can be found in many scientific fields and disciplines raises some pertinent and intriguing questions. Can complex social systems be approached in a similar way as complex systems
in nature? Are methods such as computer simulations also useful within the social realm to investigate how collective patterns emerge from micro-level interactions? Or does the complexity of social systems resist reductionism to lower-levels, thus requiring us to acknowledge the causal power of higher-level social entities and social structures? And perhaps most importantly: can these approaches be combined?
This thesis addresses these questions and through four theoretical and empirical studies it explores different approaches to social complexity and show how they can be combined.
Paper I critically engages the notion of complexity and introduces a theoretical tool that distinguishes between different types of complexity and charts the relation between systems, problems and methods. The notion of wicked systems is introduced to describe the category most social systems belong to.
Paper II focuses on radical societal transitions that are driven
by social movements. The paper develops an integrated theoretical framework by combining social movement literature with Transition Studies—an interdisciplinary field that focuses on large scale socio-technical transitions. This conceptual framework builds upon complexity-thinking and focuses on the type of multi-level causality that typically characterizes social change.
Paper III develops a computer simulation to investigate the emergent network structural effects of free social spaces on the diffusion of social mobilization, thus illustrating the potential of integrating formal modeling in research on social movements.
Paper IV investigates discursive connections between Islamophobia and anti-feminism in a corpus of 50 million posts extracted from an Internet forum. The paper develops a methodological synergy that combines Critical Discourse Analysis and Topic Modeling—a type of statistical model for the automated categorization of large amounts of texts. This is complemented with tools from Social Network Analysis to illustrate discursive connections. By employing different approaches to social complexity, each of these studies contributes to answering open issues in its field and thus provides a concrete illustration of how a complexity-based inquiry can inform sociology. By discussing, elaborating and refining various theories and notions, the introductory chapter then provides a re-contextualization of these studies and illustrates how
they constitute complementing approaches that can be combined. The main conclusion is that most social systems can be conceptualized as wicked systems: they are open, nebulous systems, characterized by multi-level causation which makes them recalcitrant to formalization and reductionism. This calls for a method-pluralist approach that combines individualist strategies such as computer simulations with process-based frameworks that address multi-level causation and the co-evolution of causal mechanisms on higher levels. This approach
to social complexity thus enables a way of capturing parts of the analytical sociology position, but embedded within a critical realist ontology that acknowledges the social as an emergent reality with its own specific powers. It also offers a contribution to critical realism by enabling us to systematically explore emergent processes. Hence, complexity science furnishes what critical realism lacks by affording both conceptual and technical means to study the emergent interplay
between human action and social structure.
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Papers by Anton Törnberg
literature. Under names such as safe spaces, social havens, and counterpublics, they have been characterized as protective shelters against prevailing hegemonic ideologies and as hubs for the diffusion of ideas and ideologies. However, the vast literature on these spaces has predominantly focused on internal dynamics and processes, thus neglecting how they relate to the diffusion of collective mobilization. Inspired by formal modeling in collective action research, we develop a network model to investigate how the structural properties of free social spaces impact the diffusion of collective mobilization. Our results show that the assumption of clustering is enough for structural effects to emerge, and that clustering furthermore interacts synergistically with political deviance. This indicates that it is not only internal dynamics that play a role in the relevance of free social spaces for collective action. Our approach also illustrates how formal modeling can deepen our understanding of diffusion processes in collective mobilizations
through analysis of emergent structural effects.
combining theory for complexity and complicatedness may be much more challenging than envisioned. In short, systems where complexity and complicatedness is mixed ought to be treated as a distinct class of systems. Noting a connection to what has long been called ‘‘wicked problems’’ we hereby outline such a class of systems that we call ‘‘wicked systems’’. We introduce a simple model and heuristic and discuss some implications for theorizing and modeling.
Thesis Chapters by Anton Törnberg
Complexity science shows that patterns and system dynamics in complex systems cannot be understood only through the properties of system components, but emerge through the intricate interactions between these components. Complexity science is now a dominant perspective within the natural sciences and has proven useful to analyze complex systems ranging from flocks of birds to the financial market, traffic congestion and emergency evacuations. The fact that complexity dynamics are general and can be found in many scientific fields and disciplines raises some pertinent and intriguing questions. Can complex social systems be approached in a similar way as complex systems
in nature? Are methods such as computer simulations also useful within the social realm to investigate how collective patterns emerge from micro-level interactions? Or does the complexity of social systems resist reductionism to lower-levels, thus requiring us to acknowledge the causal power of higher-level social entities and social structures? And perhaps most importantly: can these approaches be combined?
This thesis addresses these questions and through four theoretical and empirical studies it explores different approaches to social complexity and show how they can be combined.
Paper I critically engages the notion of complexity and introduces a theoretical tool that distinguishes between different types of complexity and charts the relation between systems, problems and methods. The notion of wicked systems is introduced to describe the category most social systems belong to.
Paper II focuses on radical societal transitions that are driven
by social movements. The paper develops an integrated theoretical framework by combining social movement literature with Transition Studies—an interdisciplinary field that focuses on large scale socio-technical transitions. This conceptual framework builds upon complexity-thinking and focuses on the type of multi-level causality that typically characterizes social change.
Paper III develops a computer simulation to investigate the emergent network structural effects of free social spaces on the diffusion of social mobilization, thus illustrating the potential of integrating formal modeling in research on social movements.
Paper IV investigates discursive connections between Islamophobia and anti-feminism in a corpus of 50 million posts extracted from an Internet forum. The paper develops a methodological synergy that combines Critical Discourse Analysis and Topic Modeling—a type of statistical model for the automated categorization of large amounts of texts. This is complemented with tools from Social Network Analysis to illustrate discursive connections. By employing different approaches to social complexity, each of these studies contributes to answering open issues in its field and thus provides a concrete illustration of how a complexity-based inquiry can inform sociology. By discussing, elaborating and refining various theories and notions, the introductory chapter then provides a re-contextualization of these studies and illustrates how
they constitute complementing approaches that can be combined. The main conclusion is that most social systems can be conceptualized as wicked systems: they are open, nebulous systems, characterized by multi-level causation which makes them recalcitrant to formalization and reductionism. This calls for a method-pluralist approach that combines individualist strategies such as computer simulations with process-based frameworks that address multi-level causation and the co-evolution of causal mechanisms on higher levels. This approach
to social complexity thus enables a way of capturing parts of the analytical sociology position, but embedded within a critical realist ontology that acknowledges the social as an emergent reality with its own specific powers. It also offers a contribution to critical realism by enabling us to systematically explore emergent processes. Hence, complexity science furnishes what critical realism lacks by affording both conceptual and technical means to study the emergent interplay
between human action and social structure.
literature. Under names such as safe spaces, social havens, and counterpublics, they have been characterized as protective shelters against prevailing hegemonic ideologies and as hubs for the diffusion of ideas and ideologies. However, the vast literature on these spaces has predominantly focused on internal dynamics and processes, thus neglecting how they relate to the diffusion of collective mobilization. Inspired by formal modeling in collective action research, we develop a network model to investigate how the structural properties of free social spaces impact the diffusion of collective mobilization. Our results show that the assumption of clustering is enough for structural effects to emerge, and that clustering furthermore interacts synergistically with political deviance. This indicates that it is not only internal dynamics that play a role in the relevance of free social spaces for collective action. Our approach also illustrates how formal modeling can deepen our understanding of diffusion processes in collective mobilizations
through analysis of emergent structural effects.
combining theory for complexity and complicatedness may be much more challenging than envisioned. In short, systems where complexity and complicatedness is mixed ought to be treated as a distinct class of systems. Noting a connection to what has long been called ‘‘wicked problems’’ we hereby outline such a class of systems that we call ‘‘wicked systems’’. We introduce a simple model and heuristic and discuss some implications for theorizing and modeling.
Complexity science shows that patterns and system dynamics in complex systems cannot be understood only through the properties of system components, but emerge through the intricate interactions between these components. Complexity science is now a dominant perspective within the natural sciences and has proven useful to analyze complex systems ranging from flocks of birds to the financial market, traffic congestion and emergency evacuations. The fact that complexity dynamics are general and can be found in many scientific fields and disciplines raises some pertinent and intriguing questions. Can complex social systems be approached in a similar way as complex systems
in nature? Are methods such as computer simulations also useful within the social realm to investigate how collective patterns emerge from micro-level interactions? Or does the complexity of social systems resist reductionism to lower-levels, thus requiring us to acknowledge the causal power of higher-level social entities and social structures? And perhaps most importantly: can these approaches be combined?
This thesis addresses these questions and through four theoretical and empirical studies it explores different approaches to social complexity and show how they can be combined.
Paper I critically engages the notion of complexity and introduces a theoretical tool that distinguishes between different types of complexity and charts the relation between systems, problems and methods. The notion of wicked systems is introduced to describe the category most social systems belong to.
Paper II focuses on radical societal transitions that are driven
by social movements. The paper develops an integrated theoretical framework by combining social movement literature with Transition Studies—an interdisciplinary field that focuses on large scale socio-technical transitions. This conceptual framework builds upon complexity-thinking and focuses on the type of multi-level causality that typically characterizes social change.
Paper III develops a computer simulation to investigate the emergent network structural effects of free social spaces on the diffusion of social mobilization, thus illustrating the potential of integrating formal modeling in research on social movements.
Paper IV investigates discursive connections between Islamophobia and anti-feminism in a corpus of 50 million posts extracted from an Internet forum. The paper develops a methodological synergy that combines Critical Discourse Analysis and Topic Modeling—a type of statistical model for the automated categorization of large amounts of texts. This is complemented with tools from Social Network Analysis to illustrate discursive connections. By employing different approaches to social complexity, each of these studies contributes to answering open issues in its field and thus provides a concrete illustration of how a complexity-based inquiry can inform sociology. By discussing, elaborating and refining various theories and notions, the introductory chapter then provides a re-contextualization of these studies and illustrates how
they constitute complementing approaches that can be combined. The main conclusion is that most social systems can be conceptualized as wicked systems: they are open, nebulous systems, characterized by multi-level causation which makes them recalcitrant to formalization and reductionism. This calls for a method-pluralist approach that combines individualist strategies such as computer simulations with process-based frameworks that address multi-level causation and the co-evolution of causal mechanisms on higher levels. This approach
to social complexity thus enables a way of capturing parts of the analytical sociology position, but embedded within a critical realist ontology that acknowledges the social as an emergent reality with its own specific powers. It also offers a contribution to critical realism by enabling us to systematically explore emergent processes. Hence, complexity science furnishes what critical realism lacks by affording both conceptual and technical means to study the emergent interplay
between human action and social structure.