Welcome to this lecture on actor- and network analysis.
My name is Bert Enserink and I will be your teacher on this subject.
These colourful pictures behind me are maps representing social networks;
one shows you the structure of a network of websites that refer to each other
and the other shows us the pattern of sexual relations in a group of people.
Nowadays these maps are quite popular; for instance on LinkedIn you can create a map of your own social network
and there are nice Apps to make such a network map of all your friends on Facebook.
Your Facebook map is for fun but these are serious applications too.
Knowing how these networks look like may be helpful in explaining for instance why some websites are more successful than others
or how a venereal disease spreads in a population, and the latter may help you to design a smart campaign to cap the spread of gonorrhea.
These kind of maps thus can be of interest for policy making; you might map who are involved in the offshore industry;
who are influencing the European banking crises or to determine which persons are most influential in the various board of supervisory directors.
In this part of the course we will learn what actor analysis is about, why you do it and how to do it in a structured way.
We will first discuss WHAT actor network analyses are and WHY we make them.
Then, I will walk you through the six steps needed to execute a full-blown actor network analysis.
Now, when watching this lecture consider yourself to be a consultant
who is going to apply this method for mapping and analyzing the network surrounding your case.
Think about what you want to remember later; make notes of what you think are the most important elements.
We, people, are "social animals"; peole and groups of people operate in networks;
we relate to other people and other groups because most of today's problems in society
cannot be solved by a single person, by a single actor; they are too complex.
In order to solve these problems, we need to cooperate. We are interdependent.
Governments for instance need the private sector to implement effective policies;
and the private sector needs the government for regulating the markets, which they are operating in.
But often we are not aware of the networks we are operating in;
the social fabric of the company or organization we are working in,
the people inside and outside our organization we need to get things done,
but if you make these linkages and these dependencies explicit , you can use
the power and the means of the people and the organizations in your network to get things done,
and you can think about strategies to prevent that other actors with different objectives obstruct your plans.
So, knowing more about the actors and the networks in which they operate helps you to:
Improve the quality of your analysis as you can tap on the wisdom of the crowds and exploit local knowledge.
Get better solutions as talking to more people means getting more different ideas, different opinions.
We gain insights in conflicts between parties and in opportunities and threats.
We may gain support for policy implementation as we learn who else wants the problem to be solved,
who else has means we might use to solve it and because engaged people feel responsible.
And there is a normative argument too as involving people in policy decisions affecting them
is a matter of good governance and these are democratic concerns.
By now, we already used some terms that need better definition, therefore you should remember the following:
'Actors' we define as "social entities that have an interest in a system,
and/or have some ability to influence that system"
Actors are often groups and organizations, but also (important) individuals can be considered as actors.
Networks are more or less stable patterns of social relations between actors,
and in this course we will focus on networks that take shape around policy problems or programmes.
So, WHY actor analysis?
I will show you one example to illustrate why actor analysis can be important -
in this case for the oil company Shell,
who in the 90ties of the past century wanted to dispose of an old oil rig,
or in fact a huge buoy that had been used for storing crude North Sea oil and which would be sunk into the deep sea
as extensive studies had shown that deep sea disposal would be the most environmental friendly option.
But Shell had not been very attentive to other actors who were opposed to this solution
and were able to mobilize their network to support a very different solution.
Yes, it is an old case , but it is a classical and clear example of a simple project going wrong
for neglecting other actors in a policy game.
Watch this one minute video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FVSgmvpWp3s) and you will see what happened.
It is in Dutch but the images are telling the message.
In 1995, Greenpeace portested against Shell's intention to dump the oil platform Brent Spar into the sea.
Because of Greenpeace's protest, Shell was put under pressure by the public opinion.
A long possesion of the Brent Spar by Greenpeace ensued on sea.
Ultimately, this led to Shell changing its decision of dumping the Brent Spar to dismantle and recycle it.
Due to this event, the dumping of other old oil rigs in sea was prevented.
So, what happened?
Well, the Brent Spar was an oil storage buoy (platform and reservoir) for holding crude oil for oil tankers
prior to the construction of an oil pipe line connecting the oil field to the main land.
The Brent Spar was jointly owned by Shell Oil and Exxon,
but Shell UK was responsible for the decommissioning. Preparations for decommissioning started in 1992.
The Brent Spar was located in British territorial waters of a depth greater than 75 meters
and weighed more than 14,500 tons. What to do with such a huge structure?
Well, Shell commissioned no fewer than 30 separate studies to consider the technical, safety
and environmental implications of disposal resulting in four possible options:
One is Disposal on land, second is Sinking the buoy at its current location (acceptable by IMO guidelines),
the third one Decomposition of the buoy on the spot, or,
Deep-sea dumping in depth greater than 2,000 meters within U.K. territorial waters.
After considering these options, with their risks and benefits, Shell concluded that only
On land disposal and Sinking in the deep sea were viable.
The other options were judged as unfeasible or environmentally harmful.
Deep sea dumping became Shell's choice
because of the relatively low cost and of the small environmental impact.
It was the best practical environmental option (BPEO) in the environmental impact assessment.
On land was estimated to cost four times more and present a high risk (six times higher) for workers.
So, Shell got permission to dispose of the Brent Spar through deep-sea sinking
from the U.K. Department of Trade and Industry in December 1994.
The decision was published and no other nation objected.
So, accordingly, the U.K. issued the disposal license authorizing deep-sea sinking of the Brent Spar.
But, before the disposal could be accomplished, Greenpeace activists and journalists (23 in total)
occupied the Brent Spar on April 30, 1995.
Shell security personnel and the Scottish police were dispatched to remove the protestors.
That was not easy as Greenpeace activists attached themselves to Brent Spar as you have sene in the movie.
The media predominantly supported Greenpeace in its coverage: One should not spoil our seas!
Greenpeace activists were portrayed as heroes defending the environment, fighting Shell and the U.K at sea.
Greenpeace, with the support of other actors in their network, like nature conservation groups,
mobilized an effective consumer boycott of Shell gasoline stations in Germany, Holland, and parts of Scandinavia.
In Germany, Shell gasoline sales declined by 20%
and fifty gas stations were vandalized, two were even fire bombed by activists.
Shell Germany and Shell Netherlands, feeling the pressure of the boycott, publicly criticized Shell U.K.
and the U.K. government and questioned the disposal decision.
Even the German environmental and agricultural ministries protested against the U.K government,
claiming that the land disposal option had not been adequately investigated.
The story continues: On June 16, 1995, the Brent Spar was again occupied by Greenpeace activists
who boarded it from a helicopter as it was being readied for transport.
A Shell tugboat sprayed other Greenpeace activists with water
as they attempted to board Brent Spar from boats in an attempt to keep them away.
Pictures of Greenpeace activists, like the ones in the movie, braving the assault of water cannons
adorned the front pages of newspapers throughout the world.
At this point, Greenpeace made claims regarding their scientific analysis
of the contents of the storage tanks on the Brent Spar,
stating that there were large quantities of heavy metals and other highly toxic organic materials present
and that Shell had failed to declare in their analyses.
On June 20, 1995, only hours before the scheduled disposal of Brent Spar,
Shell announced that it was calling off the deep-sea sinking option.
Well, behind me you can see how the story ended: Shell towed off the Spar to a Norwegian fjord.
As an act of restoration and governance, it organized a design contest
at European universities to think up a practical solution and for generation of social support.
In the end the walls of the buoy were used as quays in a Norwegian off shore harbor.
And the claims by Greenpeace about the contamination and heavy metals inside the buoy prooved to be false
and the environmental and health impact of the on-land decommissioning was indeed considerable.
What do we learn from the story:
Well, (1): Communication is essential.
(2) You should not ignore your opponents.
And (3) the Mobilization power of parties can be very effective to change things.
Maybe this all could have been prevented if Shell had paid due attention to the social environment it was operating in
and had taken along the concerns of their opponents from the start of the process.
And maybe if it had organized its decision process differently.
But this is all hindsight. The general message is: know your playing field,
beware of the concerns and issues of other actors and keep them in mind when you design your policies
and try to create support for your plans and policies.
Well, how to explore and map these social and political playing fields for policy making
is exactly what we will learn to do in this part of the course.