Detecting communities in complex networks accurately is a prime challenge, preceding further
analyses of network characteristics and dynamics. Until now, community detection took into account
only positively valued links, while many actual networks also feature negative links. We extend an
existing (spin glass) approach to incorporate negative links as well, resulting in a method similar to
the clustering of signed graphs, but more accurate and more general. To illustrate our method, we
applied it to a network of international alliances and disputes. Using data from 1993{2001, it turns
out that the world can be divided into six power blocs similar to Huntington’s civilizations, with
some notable exceptions.

In sociology, the appropriateness of national approaches for understanding social
inequality in today’s societies is being increasingly questioned, and EU-wide ap-
proaches are advocated instead. In this paper, we link the growing debate about
national or EU-wide approaches to reference group theory, investigating whether
comparisons with foreign countries influence levels of individual life satisfaction.
Our results indicate that, on the one hand, more people can be assumed to have
a national frame of reference than a broader international one; on the other hand,
among those who do have an idea of how average people in other countries live,
cross-border comparisons certainly influence people’s satisfaction with life. Upward
comparisons in particular are important: The more people feel personally deprived,
relative to other countries, the less satisfied they are with their lives. In contrast,
the feeling of relative gratification has a much smaller impact on life satisfaction,
and often no impact at all. This leads us to conclude that EU-wide approaches to in-
equality do make sense, but that there is also no need to jettison national approaches
completely.

This book introduces social networks to a general audience, from novices in all kinds of fields to experts wanting to catch up, and from academics on the one hand to practitioners in consultancy, management, policy, and social work on the other hand. Sophisticated models are lucidly explained and comprehensible without math (which is put in boxes, footnotes, or references), and are illustrated with network diagrams and examples ranging from anthropology to organizational sociology. A free and easy to use software tool - R’s igraph package - is explained in the final chapter so readers themselves can depict and analyze networks of interest to them. It includes a Graphical User Interface (see brief manual) that can perform a limited subset of igraph’s options in a simple and user friendly way.

The theoretical model of The Distinction is a basic reference in the sociology of lifestyles (Bourdieu, 1979). This model is fundamentally structured by two concepts, structural homology and habitus. Habitus are cultural structures that exist in people’s bodies and minds and shape a wide variety of their behaviours, beliefs and thoughts. Structural homology is the assumption that social class structure is linked to the structure of aesthetic preferences through a one-to-one correspondence, an isomorphic relation. People’s tastes are seen as channelled by their position within the class structure, which is defined by their volume of capital and its “composition” and are organised in line with a “highbrow/lowbrow” opposition. Here, we will focus on the structural homology aspect and limit ourselves to analysing to what extent it is possible to univocally relate kinds of activities the French do with their social positions. We shall empirically examine the principles of organisation of the activities, just as they were described throughout a survey on cultural and sports practices of the French, and then evaluate to what extent a structural homology between practices and social positions is still observable.

This study contributes to earlier studies aimed at the question of whether the welfare state
crowds out social capital or not by examining to what extent the welfare state affects the
value of social capital. This article investigates the effects of three sources of social capital
on occupational prestige and tests whether these effects are moderated by welfare state
effort in terms of social spending. Multi-level analyses based on European Social Survey
(ESS) 2002/03 and International Monetary Fund (IMF) data, including 39,299 people from
24 European countries, provides evidence that welfare state effort decreases the value
of social capital.

This paper compiles the results of international compartive research on well-being and the correlation between well-being and social inequality. It is a draft version of an entry for the Handbook “European Societies” edited by Immerfall and Therborn. Some of the more important findings are: European countries differ widley in their living conditions. Dimensions of social inequality are important for peoples subjective evaluation of their living conditions. Materialistic dimensions of social inequality seem to be of smaller importance in richer countries.