SAS2 Tools - Social Analysis Techniques – Actors

The Actors module consists of techniques to identify, sample or describe the Parties involved in a core problem or action, assess the Profiles of key social actors, and compare and assess the ongoing relations or Interactions among social actors.

Parties

Stakeholder Identification (PDF document, 171 KB) helps you choose the method that you need to identify the key parties or stakeholders involved in a core problem or action. You can also use this technique to visualize the differences between stakeholders who may affect a situation or course of action and stakeholders who may be affected by it.

Stakeholder Sampling (PDF document, 143 KB) helps you create a sample of stakeholder groups you wish to survey. The technique explains systematic sampling, simple random sampling, stratified random sampling, cluster sampling, multi-stage sampling, quota sampling, and oversampling.

Personification (PDF document, 125 KB) helps you create a personal, human profile of stakeholder groups ('personify' them) to gain a better understanding of real-life situations. The technique is useful in situations where stakeholders are not organized and have no way to represent themselves.

Actor Profiles

Social Analysis CLIP (PDF document, 516 KB) is a novel SAS² technique that helps you examine how factors of Collaboration (or Conflict), Legitimacy, Interests, and Power shape the stakeholder structure in a specific situation. You can use the technique to identify possible strategies to manage social problems or mobilize support for proposed actions. The technique is supported by software and other techniques for assessing each CLIP factor in detail.

Legitimacy (PDF document, 174 KB) helps you gain a better understanding of stakeholder legitimacy using the three 'R' factors: rights, responsibilities, and resolve. You can use this technique to investigate how the distribution of these factors affects stakeholders' abilities to handle a core problem or action.

Interests (PDF document, 141 KB) helps you evaluate the gains and losses that may result from an existing situation or a course of action. The kinds of interests that are examined include the gains and losses that may affect sources of stakeholders' power such as economic wealth, political authority, the ability to use force or the threat of force, information, the means to communicate, legitimacy, and social ties.

Power (PDF document, 155 KB) helps you understand and evaluate the sources and levels of power that different stakeholders hold in a particular situation. The major sources of power are 1) economic wealth, 2) political authority, 3) the ability to use force or threats of force, 4) access to information (knowledge and skills) and the means to communicate.

Social Ladder (PDF document, 134 KB) helps you analyze the vertical or hierarchical relationships that exist among parties involved in a core problem or action. The technique can be used to analyse the advantages and disadvantages of holding higher or lower positions, and the attitudes or behavior that each party adopts to maintain these positions.

Role Dialogue (PDF document, 227 KB) helps you understand the different roles that a party (one person or a group of people) plays in a concrete situation. It can also help you look at the relationships between these roles based on the interests, the power, and the level of legitimacy associated with each role.

Actor Interactions

Social Domain (PDF document, 484 KB) helps you characterize and compare actors using terms and characteristics chosen by the participants themselves. It also helps you look for ways to negotiate views of actors across social and cultural boundaries, test people's views against experience, solve problems, and identify learning opportunities.

Network Dynamics (PDF document, 252 KB) helps you explore the network of influence, trust or information that exists between stakeholders involved in a core problem or situation. You can use the technique to discuss how to improve or make better use of key connections in your network of influence, trust or information in order to achieve your goals.

Role Dynamics (PDF document, 315 KB) helps you examine what stakeholders expect of each other in a particular situation, and how much these expectations are actually satisfied (fulfilment, polarization or failure). The technique can be used to discuss how you can fill gaps between role expectations and actual performances.

Social Dynamics (PDF document, 232 KB) helps you bring together actor, problem and option assessment in a single analysis that asks how each principal stakeholder, problem and activity (proposed or real) influences and is influenced by other stakeholders, problems and activities. The technique supports discussion of how you can use or modify some factors in ways that help you achieve your goals.