Social capital is currently one of social structure‘s most prominent and debated manifestations. However, we have a limited understanding of how social ties as the basis of social capital form in the first place. From one perspective social capital is viewed as: "investment in social relations...

Networks are often see as emergent and self-managed; and yet much of the research on networks examines how networks affect the effectiveness of systems and individuals. Is it possible to intervene in the configuration of a network to improve how it functions? Here we evaluate the impact of an...

We examine the social antecedents for contributing to campaigns, with a particular focus on the role of population density. Using 10 years of US campaign contribution data from the Federal Election Commission (FEC), we find that the idea of contributing to a campaign is easier to spread in a...