Lustick, Miodownik / Neighborhoods and Tips
4
However, with so many variables in play, with so many different methods and
models employed, with different and often overlapping subsets of these variables present
in different studies, it is difficult to translate results in one study to reinforce or contradict
findings in other studies. With the hope of increasing the coherence of work done on this
problem from various perspectives we will, in this paper, focus as clearly as possible on
just one issue: the role of “spatiality,” or “zone of knowledge.” Research on this topic
has been very limited. As we shall show, several scholars have noted the importance of
convenient assumptions of the absence of spatiality, but without being able to suggest the
impact on their claims about tipping behavior were that variable to be included in the
analysis. Other work has tried, albeit without fully isolating this variable, to link average
size of neighborhoods or networks within a population to the possibility of cascading
behavior or of tipping. These studies have suggested that particular network or
neighborhood types and sizes are important for assessing the possibility of tips. Most of
these studies, however, focus on conditions that are necessary for tips to occur, rather
than on conditions making tipping more or less likely. In addition different studies, in this
tradition, have produced contradictory findings about the implications of smaller vs.
larger neighborhoods for expectations of cascades leading to convergence. Accordingly,
we present a brief review of the literature on tipping to show the difficulties posed for the
scope, interpretation, and persuasiveness of findings by failures to theorize spatiality even
as its importance is recognized.
In this paper we consider first some of the most prominent efforts in comparative
politics to employ informal or discursive models of political cascades and of tipping.
This is followed by examination of three (somewhat overlapping) formal approaches:
Convention