SNA of Networks of Libyan Expatriate Organizations

I am writing my thesis on Libyan expatriate networks. I could use network analysis to begin to understand how Libyan expatriate networks connect to each other.

Social Network Analysis could contribute to the answering questions in following areas (I'm not ready to hypothesize yet!):

• Understanding the nature of connections between groups
• Understanding the nature of connections between groups and the National Transitional Council
• Inform whether political factions exist and along what lines
• Anticipate divides along groups of affiliated people
• Look into the distribution of power in new cabinets, ministries, etc

SNA Methodology:
I will use a webcrawler to explore which organizations linked to each other from Feb - October 2011. These links will be the basis for establishing ties between organizations.
Using the data from the webcrawler I will organize the ties in excel in order to enter the data into UCINET. Once in UCINET, I will be able to identify how the organizations are connected and will look at direct and indirect connections, bimodal connections, cliques, factions, k-cores, components, and eigenvectors and other network features.

Understanding how the organizations relate to each other and to the NTC will inform current and emerging thinking on the status and role of returning Libyans and expatriate Libyans.

Methodology for understanding the context and fleshing out SNA with narratives
I will examine individual-level participation in the broader rebellion and in organizations participating in the revolution (because as our opponents insisted in the debate, organizations are, after all, composed of individuals). I will detail individual narratives from expatriates who returned to Libya and those who did not in order to understand motivations on an individual level and to examine how individuals are connected to the organizations. Complementing a network analysis with personal accounts will both help me analyze the network and to dig deeper into issues that emerge out of the analysis. I will mix individual stories that I gather directly with those that are available through news reports, interviews and blogs.

Some materials are widely available. Here's a taste: Janine di Giovanni (writing for Newsweek) traveled to Libya recently and explored the experiences of former expatriates who had returned to Libya. One subject, Huda Abuzeid, reflected on joining the rebellion. "During the start of the Libyan revolution, she was in London editing a film she had made about Egypt. Even as she watched television with “my heart squeezed,” she thought the Libyan revolution “would be over in a week.” Yet she bought a camera, headed to Benghazi, the seat of the resistance, and offered her services. ... She says she always thought she would never get to Libya until she was very old. “I saw my father live with the failed revolution, and now I am living what he could not see,” she says. “I realized, finally, Libya was free.”"

A few preliminary sources:
Libyan Organizations:
http://shabablibya.org/

A number of loosely and perhaps closely bound groups are organized and accessible via facebook, these include The Libyan Uprising Group, Libyan Youth Forum, a women's civi rights organization and many (hundreds?) more.

The International Libyan Communication Group lists 62 organizations who are cooperating with them. The majority of this list are based outside of Libya. Organizations like the ILCG and their list will help me develop a robust group of organizations to analyze.

Coverage of how groups organized within Gaddafi-controlled Libya will help lay the context for the types of group that expatriate organizations would ally with as well as the challenges they faced. For example this article explores how in facing limitations to internet accessibility and under heavy surveillance, anti-Gaddafi networks in Libya organized offline, in face-to-face meetings.

Coverage from demonstration (celebrations) following Gaddafis death this week available for demonstrations took place in Canadian, US and British cities and others.

Other pieces of interest but not directly related.
August 2011. Jillian York of the Electronic Frontier Foundation wrote for Al Jazeera English that social-media-based networks are vulnerable to manipulation, for example, governments (Syria and Iran) have used facebook to identify and repress activists.

September 2011. Pro-Assad Syrian Electronic Army has attacked websites at a number of US media, government and institutional websites. This mimics the power plays in real time that we witnessed during the Arab Spring. "The first is to deny the online public space from activists and demonstrators in kind of the same way security forces on ground try to deny physical space. In Egypt and in Libya, activists could get around security forces by just going online until they had a critical mass to take to the streets. But in Syria, that's more difficult because the Syrian Electronic Army is making it difficult to come together."