1: Introduction 1-6

p.1 The most appropriate analytic unit for the scientific study of social life is the network of social relations and interactions between actors

p.2 The key properties of social actors... are... capacities and dispositions acquired in and sustained through interaction... how actors act is shaped on various levels by the situations in which they find themselves... Action is always oriented to other actions and events within the networks in which the actor is embedded... Even private contemplation is a process of 'inner conversation', an interaction which, as Mead (1967) notes, both presupposes a conversational competence acquired by way of interaction with others and engages with internalized representations of the perspectives of significant others.

p.2 We were social before we were human and perhaps only ever became the type of organism that we now call 'human' because we were social.

p.3 we can identify mechanisms within interaction, relations and networks which help to explain and understand events in the social world.

2: Individualism, holism and beyond 7-21

p.13 The holist fails to see that society is constantly in the making, always becoming, that it is wholly dependent upon what happens 'within' it for its identity, form and existence. Relational sociology... focuses upon the relational dynamics which make and remake societies continually. Society is not a 'thing' for the relationalist but rather a state of play within a vast web of ongoing interactions.

p.13 I contend both that much human action is in fact interaction... and that interaction comprises an irreducible whole (see also Mead 1967; Elias 1978). When i and j interact, each responds to and affects the other such that they collectively generate a whole which is irreducible to them as individual entities: i's actions are influenced by j's and j's by i's

p.16 Relations are important because they enable and constrain action. [JLJ - put this into 2015 paper...]

p.17 My version of relationalism posits that individuals, or rather actors, are formed and continually re-formed in and through interaction.

p.18 The meaning of our verbal and written utterances... necessarily presupposes both a speaker and a listener... Actors may learn to play both roles in relation to their selves, in 'internal conversations', and reflexively monitor and respond to their own utterances in external communication... Likewise, the exchange value, in economic transactions, presupposes two parties between whom objects are exchanged. It exists between actors as a relational property

p.19 As actors we are in a constant process of becoming by virtue of the interactions and engagements that comprise our lives.

p.21 The social world comprises networks of interaction between actors who cannot be abstracted from these networks and who take shape as actors within interaction.

3: Mapping the territory 22-45

p.22 The concept of relations that I suggest is centered upon interaction.

p.23 For much of the intellectual history of western societies it was believed that relations, as such, do not exist... The dominant ontology did not include relations as a type of being... My argument... is that relations are real and that the social world comprises actors-in-relation - in networks.

p.27 Furthermore, we do not develop or acquire habitus before we enter into actual relations, partly because there is no time in our lives that comes before our embedding in actual relations [JLJ - my personal view is simpler. We as humans are programmed by our environment. Yep, just like a machine is programmed. The unspoken question that we ask ourselves at every moment of our lives is "what do I do now?" or "how do I go on, given that I am here in this position, and my situation is thus-and-such?" Rather than fumble about aimlessly, we reach out and grasp at anything, any rule of thumb that might appear to work for someone in a position similar to ours. We see members of our society going here and there, doing this and that, some more successful than others, and we copy the behavior of those who we want to be like. A habitus is just a convenient rule of thumb for acting that we grasp because we have to grasp something, and which works because it places us in the positions (and points us in the directions)  that society feels we need to be, at each stage of our life. Why would you consider using anything else?]

p.28 Social relations, I want to suggest, are lived trajectories of iterated interaction... Reality has a temporal dimension and our ontology must accommodate this by admitting of processes and other temporal phenomena. A social relation is not an object, akin to a bridge, but rather a shifting state of play within a process of social interaction.

p.28 When we interact we mutually modify one another's conduct, forming an irreducible and dynamic whole.

p.29 Interactions take shape over time. They simultaneously generate and follow a path. What happens early on in an interaction may both facilitate and constrain what can happen later... the parties to an interaction... are not necessarily in control of this trajectory... Interaction is dynamic and sometimes unpredictable. Actors... can find themselves doing and/or saying things that they might not have imagined in advance and might not have done or said had they not been drawn along that particular path of interaction. The path... They co-create it.

p.30 Opinions and attitudes, in other words, aren't monadic properties of individuals but rather relational stances (see also Blumer 1986; Habermas 1989; Bourdieu 1995)... Opinions form and lodge between actors not within them.

p.30 Fighting and posturing between armies in a war or boxers in a ring, for example, generate a path which draws the parties in and along, shaping the stances they adopt and the strategies they pursue... Nobody can anticipate how they will respond because nobody knows in advance what direction the interaction will take and what effect it will have upon them. A process of mutual response and mutual adaptation shifts the 'ground' that actors stand upon... Actors are shaped by the interactions in which they are involved. Trajectories of interaction can transform the way in which they act, feel and think... What and who we are is shaped, on different levels, by the network of interactions in which we are located. It is our interactions which shape these networks and institutionalize the above mentioned mechanisms but, as just noted and as the sociological preoccupation with 'unintended consequences' suggests, the direction in which our interactions move and take us is often beyond both our individual control and even our full knowledge and comprehension... The actions of the other 'call out a response' from me, to borrow Mead's (1967) phrase.

p.32 The point of relational sociology is not merely to marvel at interaction and its unintended consequences, however, but rather to identify its mechanisms and effects.

p.33 I suggest that interactions are characterized by five interrelated and overlapping dimensions which are always present to some extent but which may be more or less prominent in any given instance of phase: the (1) symbolic, (2) affective, (3) convention-innovation, (4) strategic, and (5) exchange-power dimensions.

p.34 Strauss (1993)... innovation and improvisation arise when interaction becomes problematic and conventions either break down or cease to work. However, conventions... are simply sedimented innovations and improvisations of the past, and the innovations and improvisations that kick in to resolve a crisis will often themselves settle into new conventions... On another level, Strauss adds, no interactions are purely conventional or purely creative. Improvisation and innovation are always evident but, by the same token, they always necessarily draw upon convention.

p.34 interactions often entail an exchange of goods and services, if only in the form of the pleasures of 'sociability' in Simmel's (1971) sense [JLJ - stretching this concept, a social game involves interactions and sequential positions, in which the actors 'struggle' (in play) to get a better position.]

p.35 Exchange often generates interdependency... between actors and thereby a balance of power between them... A social relationship, to reiterate, is the lived trajectory of iterated bouts of interaction between actors. It comprises the sedimented past and projected future of a stream of interaction... A relationship is the state of play in a trajectory of interaction that may ultimately extend across decades (although it may only extend across hours in some cases).

p.39 All relations involve some level of interdependence and thus of power, and this derives from the exchange dimension inherent in all interaction.

p.40 networks are not just patterns of connection. They are also patterns of non-connection. Networks involve both ties and absences of ties and both are important.

p.42 What can become an actor? human actors... Are they the only actors we can or should admit? ...'corporate actors' ... it has been argued that certain forms of human collective, such as trade unions, business organization and national governments, can be regarded as actors ...'actor-network' theorists seek to open the door to a whole range of non-human actors, including other animals and pieces of technology, indeed anything that can be perceived to generate effects within the context of a network (Latour 2005).

4: From strategy to empathy 46-70

p.46 Game theory is discussed, in part, because it can be a useful and insightful approach to the analysis of social interaction, particularly in the hands of its more sophisticated and sociologically attuned advocates (e.g. Axelrod 1985, 1997; Coleman 1990; Gintis 2009; Hardin 1993). We have much to learn from it... We can learn both from what game theory gets right and what it gets wrong, moving towards a more sophisticated understanding of both interaction and relations.

p.48 Strategic interaction can be defined as interaction involving parties who (1) have a conflict of interest, either partial or total; (2) (inter)act rationally (in the RAT sense) and, thus, (3) seek selfishly to maximize their own gains; and (4) anticipate that the other will do likewise. When deciding how to act in a particular situation, each actor anticipates the other's likely course of action, considering that the other will be doing the same, and acts accordingly.

p.51 Goffman (1969: 89) calls game theory's games 'miniature scenarios of a very far-fetched kind'.

p.53 Part of learning to play games in childhood is learning to anticipate the likely response of the other and pre-empt it, learning to thinking several moves ahead, learning to maintain a 'poker face' and so on.

p.56 Simmel [JLJ - Conflict and the Web of Group Affiliations, 1955] notes that, in conflict, actors manifest an interest in one another and mutually modify one another's actions. They interact and enjoy a relationship to one another, albeit an antagonistic relationship. Conflict is therefore social. It is a form of social interaction not an absence of social interaction.

p.64 As Axelrod hints and Mead and Durkheim more fully articulate, living within a flow of networked interactions has a transformative impact upon actors and their interests which, in turn, impacts back upon interaction such that it is always multi-dimensional and more complex than reductive and simplified models can hope to capture.

p.70 Interaction often manifests a strategic dimension or at least a strategic potential... our state of nature is a state of living together in interdependence and how we behave can never be understood in separation from the relational dynamics and processes that this entails.

5: Mind, meaning and intersubjectivity 71-87

p.74 the meaning of objects is defined for the embodied actor by their habitual use (Mead 1967; Merleau-Ponty 1962). This affects perception in the respect that we see objects in accordance with their potential for use - what Gibson (1979) calls their 'affordances'.

p.83 for Mead... To 'have' a mind is to think and to think is to engage in a conversation with oneself... In internal conversations... we can propose ideas then criticize them, refine them, approve them etc. This dialogical process is the essence of mental life for Mead.

p.83-84 There are four points to note here. First, reflective thought occurs in language... Second, I respond to my own thoughts, thereby giving them meaning... Third, a degree of self-consciousness is generated here and, indeed, self-control... Finally, what Mead is suggesting is that 'mind' is an emergent property of social interaction. To think is to communicate, whether with others or with one's self.

p.84 internal conversations involve the perspectives or roles of others, as incorporated by us... interaction and communication are modified by the 'thought' that emerges within them when significant symbols come into play. 'Mind' emerges within interaction but then also transforms and shapes it.

p.84-85 When replying to our own utterances in an internal conversation, Mead notes, we do not reply only to ourselves. We anticipate the likely responses of others and bring these into the conversation too... The outcome is worked out within the internal dialogue, and dialogue, as we discussed in relation to Gadamer (1989)... can be unpredictable. It follows its own path... thought itself, as a process, is inherently dialogical and social. Thought necessarily transcends the individual because it entails an interplay of points of view.

p.85 An internal conversation can be akin to a rehearsal for specific interactions, in the manner described by Goffman (1959). One purpose of conversing with ourselves is to prepare ourselves for an engagement with others. This is not necessary, however. Even in our more abstract reflections we borrow the thoughts and perspectives of others, sometimes purely for our own purposes.

6: I, me and the other 88-102

p.88 Actors play the role of others in their 'internal conversation', I argued, and this role play is essential to the dialogical process at the root of thought.

p.88 Successful interaction... requires that we have a sense of or feel for the ways in which others think and typically react. We need to be able to anticipate their likely responses by putting ourselves in their shoes... for strategic reasons

p.90 Learning to play a game such as cards or chess, for example, does not consist only in learning the rules but also in learning to anticipate the moves of one's opponent and perhaps also deduce what they have in their 'hand' and how they will play it.

p.94 our sense of self is achieved within a narrative mode... The me is a character in a story told by the I.

p.95 We can project our 'me' into the future by means of an imaginative, anticipatory construction of future dramas and events. Moreover, stories contribute to the shaping of our (future) actions... stories and storytelling, both individual and collective, furnish the 'definition of the situation' that many sociologists deem central both to the steering of social (inter)action and to academic attempts to understand it. [JLJ - strategic attempts, as well]

p.96 it is my contention that our sense of both self and other are embedded in stories

p.97 actors relate to themselves by means of narratives... the I only knows itself as 'me' and that the me is a character in a story that the I tells about itself.

p.97 We are in many respects our own 'blind spot', unable to perceive attributes that are clear to others.

7: Exchange, sociability and power 103-123

p.104 My concern here is both to bring 'power' into our consideration of relations and interactions, as it is essential to them, and also to outline a genuinely relational model of power. Many sociologists are inclined to think of power in substantialist terms, as a 'thing'. We need to guard against this and exchange affords a persuasive way of doing this.

p.104 Exchange

Human beings interact, in some part, because we need or want things from one another. We are interdependent. What we want need not be material... From this point of view interaction can be seen as an exchange of 'goods', a point which has been developed and extended... in the context of 'exchange theory'... exchange theorists argue, interaction mobilizes and transfers goods and resources between actors... We interact with others, in some part, to secure goods that we value.
 Or rather, we form relationships upon this basis.

p.105 I will suggest later that interdependency is a basis from which power emerges in social relations. [JLJ - I believe that power emerges from a "way of living" which is negotiated between two "power sensing" individuals who become entangled in their efforts to determine how to go on and must make impromptu requests from each other. Think of a motor vehicle entering a highway from a merge lane. Any vehicle already on the highway confronting this vehicle knows the rules for establishing right-of-way, but still must negotiate who yields to whom, especially if the merging vehicle has run out of room to merge, is moving slowly, if there is "barely enough" room for merging, or if it is raining, snowing or other issues are involved. The paths of the vehicles are momentarily entangled - they will have to find a way to share the highway.]

p.106 The exchange perspective posits a vision of the social world in which resources are constantly being mobilized through exchange... Exchange theory... situates resources within interactions and relationships in which they are exchanged. As such resources become a crucial element in the very definition of interaction and relationships, and are seen to be woven into the fabric of the social world, a fabric which is constantly rewoven as resources are exchanged... Exchange is important, according to exchange theory, because it binds the social world together by making actors interdependent

p.109 'only exchange makes scarcity an element in value' ...value is an emergent property of the exchange process and we cannot decompose that process into its component parts without losing what is essential to it. Exchange relations are irreducible.

p.109 scholars in Bourdieu's tradition have argued that his various 'forms of capital'... refer not to individual possessions per se but rather to their value when mobilized in particular 'fields'. 'Educational qualifications'... count as capital only insofar as they function within... the employment market, and their value is always relative to this field.

p.115 Exchange relationships... involve interdependency. Interdependency, in turn, is a basis of power (Elias, 1978; Emerson 1962; Molm 1997).

p.115 The advantaged party in a power relationship may act strategically. Cognizant of their advantage they may seek to exploit it.

p.116 Exchange and particularly networks of exchange generate power.
 Defined in this way, power is genuinely relational. It is not possessed by one party or another but rather located within their relationship.

p.118 Heath (1976) has argued that the basic logic behind the exchange theoretical definition of power also supports a further, complementary but different definition, centered upon coercion. My leverage over you need not derive from the fact that I have something you want, he argues. It may equally derive from the fact that I can punish you in ways that you do not want... Coercion, in this context, involves punishment intended to induce a change of behaviour.

p.118-119 To coerce another is to get them to do something by virtue of a threat of punishment.

p.119 'Power' is best reserved for relations in which one party, in virtue of their capacity to affect the other(s), exerts a pressure upon the other(s) to act in ways which serve their own interests. One is reminded of Foucault's (1982: 220) claim that power relations presuppose that 'the "other" (the one over whom power is exercised) be thoroughly recognised and maintained to the end as a person who acts'. Power does not bypass purposive behaviour. It works upon and by means of it.

p.119 coercive power does not work 'structurally' in the way that reward power does... actors who have the upper hand in exchange relations, being in possession of something that the other wants more than they want anything from the other, do not need to consciously use or even become conscious of their advantage in order to benefit from it. Others who desire their resources will actively court them and, particularly where there is competition for those resources, will offer them favorable terms.

p.120 What we can't get by exchange... we may try to get by coercion.

p.121 The exchange-coercion theory of power is only one of many available in the social sciences and is, in some respects, quite basic. It is important, however, on a number of grounds. First, it is genuinely relational. It does not locate power with an individual but rather in the relations between actors.

p.122 Second, the exchange-coercion model avoids the pitfalls of what Hindess (1982) calls 'capacity-outcome' models of power, whilst also avoiding the problems of his suggested alternative... Hindess's suggested alternative is a concept of 'arenas of struggle' in which actors fight it out with various obstacles and with the possible intervention of third parties.

p.122 The third strength of the exchange model is that it explores the mechanisms of power.

p.123 what I have said here... identifies power as a property of relations, rather than actors, and explores its mechanisms... As a source of power, exchange may equally be a source of conflict... the value of what is exchanged, like the meaning of what we say, emerges in the (exchange) interaction and does not exist independently of it... The social world cannot be reduced either upwards or downwards to unified wholes or disconnected parts. It is a network of dynamic interactions and relationships.

8: Structure, agency and social worlds 124-143

p.128 Giddens' structuration theory... He defines 'structure' as involving rules and resources but... argues that these rules and resources must be mobilized with skill and competence if they are to work in practice... Structure and agency are mutually implicating for Giddens. Structures structure action but action reproduces and modifies structure, facilitating its survival.

p.136 Judging my own performance against internal criteria (setting aside the problem of what they might be) is, as Wittgenstein puts it, akin to buying a second copy of the morning paper in an effort to check the veracity of the first.

p.142 Social worlds are patchworks of old and new, always open to modification, change and addition but at the same time containing aspects which have endured across time. Their structures are always in process, always potentially changing and becoming.

p.143 I began this chapter with a brief reflection upon the structure/agency 'problem', arguing that there is no problem, as such, because interaction necessarily entails both the initiative and intelligence of purposive actors (agency) and the constraints and opportunities (structure) constituted by the way of their interdependency with one another (networks), their resources and the conventions they have both created for themselves and inherited from historical ancestors. [JLJ - yet Archer begins Culture and Agency, 1995: 'The problem of structure and agency has rightly come to be seen as the basic issue in modern social theory.' For Crossley, there is no 'problem'.]

p.143 I suggested that convention is one of three aspects of social structure, the other two being networks and resources.

9: Networks, conventions and resources: the structure(s) of social worlds 144-180

p.144 In Chapter 8 I argued that... social worlds comprise social networks, conventions and a distribution of key resources which are mobilized and exchanged in interaction and which lend worlds a structure.

p.150 Nothing is static in the social world, however, including network structures. Networks are always in-process.

p.155 Structure is not magical or fixed for all time. It is relational and always in process. Even when a figuration endures it only does so by virtue of its constant iteration in interactions which could always take a different course and transform or modify it.

p.156 It is important to emphasize again here that this figuration... emerged out of interaction, acquired a durability and traction or path dependence for a period, before gradually evolving into something else.

p.158-159 social networks have structural properties - they are social structures - which generate potential opportunities and constraints for those involved in them. Furthermore, it points to the importance of a consideration of network structure in any analysis of the social worlds that, as noted earlier, are both the product and the environment of social interaction.

p.159 Interactions shape and are shaped by both relations and networks (which are, in turn, mutually affecting). Networks are structures in and of the social world which create both opportunities and constraints for those involved in them. These structures don't drop from the skies. They emerge within the hurly burly of interaction within a given population but they can 'lock in'... They emerge over time and may take time before they change to any significant degree.

p.163 Our identity at any point in time depends upon who we are interacting with and, no less importantly, which social world we are orienting to in our interaction.

p.164-165 Returning now to Radcliffe-Brown, note that he defines roles in terms of a framework of rules:

Social relations are only observed and can only be descried by reference to the reciprocal behaviour of the persons related. The form of a social structure has therefore to be described by the patterns of behaviour to which individuals and groups conform in their dealings with one another. The patterns are partially formulated in rules...

p.165 note the reference to 'reciprocal behaviour' and 'dealing with one another'. Discussion of norms and rules is often framed as if the individual adhered to them (or not) as an individual. To the contrary, insofar as they 'govern' anything, rules govern our interactions and relations with others. This is significant, because the others with whom we interact might be in a position to mobilize sanctions, providing an incentive for compliance... in order to follow rules... We just need to be mindful of sanctions, both positive and negative.

p.171 A Mead (1967) notes, physical objects derive their meaning, for human actors, from the (usually conventional) ways in which those actors use them.

p.171 Our discussion so far has only touched upon resources. They are important too, however. Many actions require certain resources for their successful execution and many worlds therefore involve the exchange and circulation of these resources. Actors interact by mobilizing and exchanging resources. As such, the network structures constituting the infrastructure of many worlds are, in one of their aspects, exchange networks. Networks are economies [JLJ - compare with "the actors interact by mobilizing their respective resources (knowledge, power, alliances, etc) and thus arrive at a preliminary formulation of policy options" (Karagiannis, Radaelli, Policy-Making, March 2007. Note that other than my notes here, the phrase "[A]ctors interact by mobilizing" occurs in only these places in the whole Internet on 4 March 2015.]

p.177 Influence in interaction, moreover, shapes further influences.

10: Big networks and small worlds: the micro-macro dichotomy 181-206

p.183 Corporate actors can make decisions to the extent that their representatives are in a position to mobilize the resources of the collective they represent and enjoy sufficient control over that collective to guarantee compliance to binding agreements.

p.192 Foucault... conceives of power as a relationship between actors... His point is that power... works only through and by means of their agency. Indeed, he goes so far as to suggest that it is meaningful to speak of power where the actor on the receiving end is 'recognised and maintained to the end as a person who acts' and where 'a whole field of responses, reactions, results, and possible inventions' is open to them... But what is it in these situations that merits use of the term 'power'? ...I suggest... that power derives from the respective capacities of parties to mobilize sanctions in relation to one another... Both parties will have some sanctions at their disposal and neither is assured of achieving compliance but relations may be imbalanced or asymmetrical insofar as one is in a position to mobilize sanctions with a greater impact... power is therefore more likely and more effective in relations of interdependence where actors are invested in one another. [JLJ - see also my notes on 164-165, 165 and 171 above]

p.196 Like Marx, White believes that networks can become a force for change when their members identify as a group.

p.206 My argument in this book has been that connections matter. Indeed, for sociologists they are or should be 'what it is all about'.

p.208 [author makes the declaration on p.53 that economics students are more likely than other students to behave as predicted by game theory in empirical experiments] I confess that I cannot remember where I read this, but I did read it! [JLJ - a paper by Carter and Irons (1991) Are Economists Different, and If So, Why? Journal of Economic Perspectives, 5: 171-177.  Nick Crossley must therefore be inept with his Internet skills. In the Carter and Irons Paper, the authors present students with an exchange game which lets one player propose a split in a pool of money and the other player gets to either 1. accept his share, or else 2. cancel the distribution for both players. Carter and Irons conclude that "we find that economists are different, but they are already different when they begin their study of economics." However it is Frank and Schulze, How Tempting is Corruption? More Bad News About Economists who declare of this Carter and Irons paper, "Carter and Irons (1991) provide the additional evidence that economics students behave 'closer' to strategies predicted by game theory." In reality, there was just one "test" studied, and it reflected more or less the tendency of an individual to "press their luck" in proposing terms of a deal. You can not extrapolate past this "result" in any conceivable way.]

p.209 Following Heath (1976) I take the coercion theory to be an extension of the exchange theory such that the two can be treated as one.