Am Soc (2008) 39:318 DOI 10.

1007/s12108-008-9030-5

Power Mapping: Enhancing Sociological Knowledge by Developing Generalizable Analytical Public Tools
Darren Noy

Published online: 31 January 2008 # Springer Science + Business Media, LLC 2008

Abstract In this article, I argue for and illustrate power mapping as a concrete research approach that can benefit specific publics while enhancing professional sociological knowledge and theory. I present power mapping as an example of a more broad approach to public sociology which seeks to harness sociological theory and knowledge in order to create generalizable analytical tools that social movements, policy makers, concerned citizens, voluntary associations, and community organizations can use to develop their own strategic assessments of the sociological contexts in which they act. One of the ironies of the current discussion of public sociology is that it has been conducted in an abstract, hyper-theoretical discourse which is precisely one of the factors that has disconnected so much sociology from general publics. In this article, I instead turn towards presenting a specific concrete research strategy which could engender mutually beneficial research collaboration and dialogue between sociologists and specific publics. Keywords Public sociology . Power mapping . Networks . Fields The most common way sociologists attempt to create positive public outcomes through their research is by directing social scientific methods of analysis to better understand particular social problems. Scholars build up a body of knowledge about issues, and then either passively hope or actively advocate that this knowledge be used by communities and policy makers to make more informed decisions, or to mobilize political change. A second commonly utilized approach to public scholarly

D. Noy (*) University of California, 410 Barrows Hall, Berkeley, CA 94720-1980, USA e-mail: darrennoy@berkeley.edu Present address: D. Noy 424 Richmond St. Apartment 1, El Cerrito, CA 94530, USA

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engagement involves popular research methods, such as participatory action research, in which the scholar facilitates a research project of a group of non-academics, often from marginalized social groups, with the intention of using this research to advance the groups political goals (Reason and Bradbury 2001). Standing between these two approaches to public scholarship is a third, much less well developed tactic: creating generalizable tools for analysis which community actors can use themselves to more effectively understand their world and take strategic action. The work of the AssetBased Community Development Institute at Northwestern University under the leadership of John Kretzmann and John McKnight is an excellent example of this approach (Kretzmann and Green 1998; Kretzmann and McKnight 1993). They have created a group of different tools which communities can use to assess the assets in their community, and from that knowledge, to initiate community development efforts. In this article, I will argue that power mapping is another important way that sociologists can help to develop generalizable analytical tools useful to publics. This argument stems out of experiences I had with a power mapping research project in San Francisco, California around the issue of homelessness. Elsewhere I have demonstrated the methods I used in that research, applied the results of that research to questions of mainstream sociological theory, and discussed principles used in that research for active scholarly engagement with policy publics, community organizations, and homeless people (Noy 2003, 2007). In this article, I will focus specifically on suggesting that a research agenda of power mapping provides an opportunity to substantively address questions of academic sociology while simultaneously developing publicly useful scholarship. By simultaneously addressing public needs and professional social science, power mapping falls in line with Calhouns (2005: 358) assertion that much great science has been at once an effort to solve practical problems and the source of basic new knowledge.

Power Mapping Power maps are strategic tools by which actors within political fields (or other fields) try to assess the social terrain in which they exist, and how they can best move forward their personal or their organizations agenda within that terrain. Power mapping, or power analysis as it is sometimes called, identifies key actors within a particular field of action, defines the power that these actors have in relation to particular decisions or resources, and assesses the relationships of these actors with each other and with oneself. Power mapping has been utilized as a tool for marketing executives, as a tool to build personal career networks, and by academics as a research tool.1 The most common use of power mapping, however, has been by community, labor, and social movement organizations seeking to strategize social change campaigns.

1 See for example: http://www.bonner.org/resources/modules/modules_pdf/BonCurPowerMapping.pdf, http://www.idealist.org/ioc/learn/curriculum/pdf/Power-Mapping.pdf, http://www.frugalmarketing.com/ dtb/powermapping.shtml

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Power mapping is not a specific and exact technique of analysis, but rather a family of different methods for assessing political contexts. Multiple, sophisticated forms of power mapping exist; and community organizers are developing new ones all the time. The simplest form of power mapping for a community organization with a particular political goal, such as passing a desired law, involves identifying the key decision makers who can enact that law, as well as the organizations allies and opponents in relation to that law. Drawing out this map, tells the organization who they need to influence, who they can count on for help, and whom they need to be careful of. While most experienced organizers already know this information in the back of their mind, putting it on a large sheet of butcher paper before them helps them to strategically think through options and to communicate strategy with others in their organization. Figure 1 shows a fictionary example of a slightly more complex form of power mapping. This figure uses generic names in order to depict what a power map might look like if drawn by a local homeless advocacy organization beginning a campaign to push their city to create a needle exchange program. The mapping involves a table which lists the organizations primary allies in this campaign, the primary opponents, and neutral decision makers. Decision makers who are either allies or opponents are indicated in this map with an underline. For an added level of complexity, this simple type of power map can be further elaborated to identify which of the opponents, allies, and decision makers have relationships with each other. This then allows organizations to take a more nuanced approach to influencing decision makers via a chain of relationships that connects them to each other, as well as to strategize how to neutralize the influence of their opponents. A still more sophisticated version of power mapping was developed by the Los Angeles based community organization AGENDA (AGENDA 2004). In their power map, they draw out a two dimensional space, organized according to a vertical and horizontal spectrum. On the vertical spectrum, they place a rising scale ranking how important a particular player is. The rank goes from 1 (not on the radar), to 4 (take into account), up all the way to 10 (decision maker). The horizontal spectrum is divided into two. On the left side, the horizontal spectrum indicates how much an actor in the political field supports your organizations agenda. The right side indicates how much an actor supports the agenda of your opponents. Within the space delineated by these two spectrums are mapped primary and secondary targets of action, as well as relevant political organizations, community institutions, and community members.

Fig. 1 Fictional power mapping for a local homeless organization initiating a campaign for a needle exchange program

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In addition to power mapping specific legislative campaigns or political goals, power mapping can also be done in order to strategize how to influence particular individuals, entire institutions, or even marketable populations and consumer groupings. Another variation of power mapping commonly utilized by labor organizations is corporate power mapping (Conrow and Banks 2003). This power mapping approach draws directly from Pfeffer and Salanciks classic work of organizational theory, External Control of Organizations, in which they theorize organizational interdependencies, organizational environments, and the inter-organizational nature of power (Pfeffer and Salancik 1978). Corporate power mapping identifies: the key people at companies (i.e. top executives and board members), interlocking companies and investors, major suppliers and customers, relationships with public agencies, politicians, media, and union members within a company. With all of this information, a labor union can draw a web of power and interdependency for a target corporation and strategize how to gain leverage over the corporation on behalf of worker demands. This corporate mapping can also be placed within the context of information about the companys strategic plan, financial situation, and overall industry trajectories. Corporate power mapping can additionally seek to identify personal and professional relationships that key decision makers in the company hold. Moral pressure and shame can then be exerted on these personal and professional relations which will in turn be passed onto these key decision makers within a company. The utilization of Pfeffer and Salanciks sociological theory in devising corporate power mapping strategies demonstrates the potential usefulness and synergy between professional sociology and the public use of power mapping techniques. Schiffer also shows the important symbiosis between scholarly work and practical power mapping (Shiffer 2007). Schiffer demonstrates through a case study of power mapping Community-Based Natural Resource Management governance in Nambia how a particular type of participatory power mapping can be used to empirically measure power and governance of development projects. She shows that power mapping exercises can add to established academic literatures about the exercise of power and development while also allowing development institutions to better plan and implement development projects. Analyzing power is particularly important for both scholarly and practical understanding of development interventions, because as Shiffer (2007: 1) writes, there is growing recognition that technically sound [development] interventions regularly fail to achieve their intended goals, because of adverse power structures. Some critics of modern development interventions have argued more strongly that the misunderstanding or intentional ignoring of local power relations by development institutions has lead to the fundamental failure of global development as a whole and to devastating, unnoticed side effects (Escobar 1995; Ferguson 1994).

Power Mapping in San Francisco In my own experiments with power mapping, I utilized network theory and frame analysis, to map out the political field of homeless policy in San Francisco, California. This mapping sought to examine the relationship between political ideas,

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organizational networks, political influence, and political decision-making. In order to generate this map, I interviewed dozens of organizational actors within the homeless policy field, asking them formalized questions about their network relationships with each other, their perception of the influence of other organizations in the field, and their beliefs about homelessness. Employing UCI-Net network analysis software, I used network data from respondents to draw an organizational network map of the field and to identify factions within the field (Borgatti et al. 2002). Then drawing on theories of frame analysis, I coded beliefs which organizational representatives held about homeless issues (Croteau and Hicks 2003; Goffman 1974; Snow et al. 1986). I finally overlaid these framings, along with perceived influence rankings for organizations onto the organizational network map of the policy field (Noy 2003). The result was a series of images each depicting the power of organizations and the location of particular ideas within the policy field. Figure 2 demonstrates how one specific belief was overlaid onto a map of the field. Specifically, this figure identifies all the organizations in the policy field which had representatives that believed the central solution to homelessness was the supportive housing program model. Each node in Fig. 2 represents an organization in the field. Organizations whose representatives believed supportive housing was the key solution to homelessness are dark, other organizations are hollow. The spatial arrangement of the nodes in this map were created using alliance network data in the UCI-Net Netdraw visualization program. The shape of the organization in the figure signifies whether it is on the political left, center, or right of the field; and the label refers to the specific organizational faction in the field to which the organization belongs.

Fig. 2 Frame mapping of the idea that supportive housing is the central solution to homelessness

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As a sociologist, I brought to the vernacular community organizing tradition of power mapping some factors not generally available to community organizations: sophisticated network data analysis techniques, time and resources for research, and access to interviews with people across the political spectrum. As such I was able to develop a complex power map of the field based on objective data collection which community organizations are not normally in a position to access. After creating this map, I presented it to actors throughout the homeless policy field. However, I most specifically worked with it by using it as the basis for extensive trainings with a particular homeless community organization. A couple of years after conducting these trainings, I asked some of the staff of the organization to reflect on the work I had done and its usefulness for the organization. These conversations were not tape recorded for the sake of comfortable and honest reflection, and therefore I must recreate their responses from notes. I was told that because of internal organizational difficulties (such as financial crisis, leadership transfer, and restructuring) the organization had not been able to use the mapping to the fullest extent possible. Nonetheless, the effects were all quite positive and they believed that there is great potential for this type of mapping. The field mapping trainings which I had conducted helped organizers and base members improve their understanding of: how other people see them; where they were impacting the field and where they might improve their strategy; how to more effectively use relationships, networks, and channels of information; how to present their message; how to use networks to reach people who they could not have reached directly; and where to look for potential allies. One person explained that he felt the mapping had helped point organizers beyond a passion based, reactionary, or dualistic mode of organizing towards strategic organizing aimed at transforming the political system and working within the complexities of that system. I was told that compared to other forms of power analysis conducted by social movement organizations, the field mapping I did was more complex. At first this made the mapping difficult to approach, but in the end, its complexity became its greatest strength, and the mapping made the field easier to navigate. While most other forms of power analysis are geared towards single campaigns, the field mapping I conducted was more appropriate for thinking about longer term goals which involve multiple campaigns and policies. It was more appropriate than other forms of power analysis or mapping for thinking about how to transform the overall structure of and beliefs about an issue, rather than just one particular policy. However, because of its complexity, it is not easily reproduced. Organizers also told me that the field mapping which I conducted and presented assisted their overall understanding of politics and organizing. It increased their ability to perceive and systematize their political environmentor at least reminded them to think strategically. The trainings developed more than just a topical understanding, but actually built their strategic skills which has allowed them to more effectively engage in other issues and in other political fields. I was also cautioned, however, that in order for this type of field mapping to have a positive impact for a social movement organization, there must already be enough strategic capacity in place to put the mapping to use. There must also be someone who can follow through with the map, and insure that it is both accessible and useful. Whether this person is an academic from the outside, or someone from within

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the organization, they must have the skills and the time to ensure that the field mapping is utilized. In addition to the trainings based on and public presentations of my San Francisco power mapping research, I was also invited in 2004 to conduct a mapping workshop with homeless policy representatives of multiple communities throughout northern California (Roundtable 2004). I created a generalized chip game for these policy representatives which they could use to map out their own homeless policy field albeit via subjective assessment rather than empirical data collection. Participants grouped together with others from their own county, forming about eight small groups of three to seven people. They were given paper cutouts of various shapes, colors, and sizes. They were asked to identify the key actors within their local homeless policy field, and the relative power of each actor. Each paper cutout was then used to represent an actor. Participants chose the cutouts such that the shapes represented a particular type of organization (i.e. diamonds were service provider, squares government departments and foundations, trapezoids business groups, triangles social movement organizations, etc.); and the size represented how powerful the actor was perceived to be (the bigger the shape, the more powerful it was). Participants were asked to write the name of the organization on the paper cutouts that represented it, and then to place these actors on a board which represented the policy field. Participants spatially arranged actors on the board such that allies were close to each other and opponents far from each other. Finally, participants were given colored dot stickers. Collectively they worked to define basic framings of homelessness in their county, and each color of the dots was then assigned to represent a different one of these framings. Participants then placed the colored dots on to the different actors in the policy field to represent who held particular framings of homelessness. Figure 3 is a replication of one of the mappings of a local homeless policy field which participants from a rural northern Californian county created during the workshop. The specific names of the organizations are removed from this replica. In the original, each organization had one or more colored dot to indicate the organizations framings of homelessness. Since multiple colored dots would not reproduce well here, I indicated the predominant framing of each organization by the type of lines of the shape. Though this chip game was complex and required quite a long time to complete, the participants found the exercise to be useful and insightful. The game was too complex to be repeated without my guidance, and required too much guesswork to be overly trusted. However, the deliberative process for the participants of this chip game of reflecting together on the structure of power, relationships, and ideas within their shared political field was an insightful exercise for them. The technique I used in my research for power mapping San Francisco homeless policy and the corresponding chip game was by no means the only or the best approach to mapping a political field. In hindsight, it is probably too complex to be commonly utilized. While I was able to create a generalizable tool out of it for a day long workshop with policy representatives of multiple counties, this tool could not easily be further diffused by these participants. Finding the balance between sophistication and public employability, however, is one of the exciting challenges of power mapping as a simultaneous professional and

10 Fig. 3 Replica mapping of rural county homeless policy field created during Northern California workshop

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public sociological research agenda. Another exciting aspect of power mapping as a research agenda is that it allows an opportunity to draw on various strands of sociological theory and literature in order to innovatively develop new and different forms of power mapping. Utilizing sociological theory in the practical task of power mapping can help sociologists gain a grounded understanding of what they really are able to explain and how useful and communicable their theories or methods are for general publics. Of course, in order to translate sociological theory into a grounded, publicly useful power mapping tool, it is necessary to engage in this research from its very initial conceptualization in collaboration with specific actors engaged in a political field. This raises a whole host of ethical questions for public sociologists, as well as practical questions about how to effectively partner with community organizations. I have provided my own reflections on these questions elsewhere (Noy 2007). For the remainder of this article, I will instead discuss, based on my own research experience, some of the sociological literatures that might be enhanced and explored via power mapping research.

The Benefits to Sociology of Power Mapping Research One of the most obvious sociological literatures that may benefit from power mapping is the literature on power. Power is one of the most important of all concepts in the social sciences, and one that is implicitly involved in almost all subfields of sociology. Since the foundational work of Marx and Weber theorizing in various ways about the exercise of power, will, domination, authority, state violence, exploitation, legitimacy, class, and status, sociologists have sought to examine the gross and refined workings of power in every type of human relation and institution (Bourdieu 1986, 1991b; Dahl 1957; Foucault 1984; Gramsci 1971; Lukes 2005; Marx 1978; Weber 1968; Wrong 1995). One of the perennial questions of sociologists has been, how to define and operationalize power such that it can be

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empirically measured in the world. This is, of course, precisely what power mapping seeks to do. Sociological investigations of power have generally been divorced from the efforts of community organizations and other real world actors to assess the operation of power within their communities or political fields. Sociologists are interested in empirically measuring power s operation for the sake of assessing theoretically oriented truth claims; whereas, real world actors are interested in creating descriptions of their environment that will help them to better strategically navigate it. However, by engaging in real world efforts at power mapping, sociologists can hone their ability to understand, operationalize, measure, and communicate theories about power. One aspect of a power mapping research agenda would be for sociologists to try to apply both classic and contemporary theoretical views of power in real time mapping exercises. For example, how can Weber s definition of legitimacy and domination, or Gramscis idea of hegemony be used to create an empirical map of power in a community such that it could inform strategic action by organized actors? Does Foucaults attention to power as knowledge point to anything that is missed in traditional community based power mapping exercises which focus almost entirely on direct political influence over state decision-making? If so, how could we create a Foucaultian power map? Can power mapping based on Bourdieus theories of symbolic power be used to enhance the strategic capacity of grassroots social change campaigns? From a Marxist perspective, what are the key differences between power mapping of local, national, or global political arenas? What do Lukes different forms of power tell us about how to undertake a power mapping exercise? These questions provide just a few illustrations of how sociological literature about power can be further investigated by power mapping. An important part of a power mapping research agenda will be to generate and answer other such questions. As an illustration of applying sociological theories to power mapping, Fig. 4 applies Gramscis theory of hegemony and of the relations of force to the power dynamics of homelessness in San Francisco. Gramsci suggests that political dynamics must be analyzed according to three relations of force: economic, political, and military (Gramsci 1971). This figure therefore presents a picture of hegemony operating across these three relations. Each shape represents an organization. Organizations largely subsumed by business class hegemony are represented as ovals, whereas organizations seeking to build poor peoples power are represented as rectangles. The horizontal location of the shape demonstrates whether it is primarily a military, economic, or political force. So for example, the police are an expression of military power employed over homeless people on behalf of business class hegemony. So too is the department of public works because it exercises the physical power to confiscate the property of homeless people in encampments or shopping carts, and to forcibly destroy it. In contrast, urban squatter groups which break into and take over abandoned buildings for homeless people to quietly live in, or as a public protest action, represent the use of military action on behalf of poor peoples power. The size of the shape in the map stands for the organizations overall force within the community. When a shape overlaps another, this means it is exercising power

12 Fig. 4 Application of Gramscian theory to San Francisco homeless power mapping

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over it. So for example, the business community exercises hegemonic influence over the mayor, who in turn has influence over the police and public works department. The business community even has some influence over the Mayor s chief political rival and the progressive community foundationeven though these are both primarily aligned with poor peoples power. Finally, the horizontal line represents the formal state. Those who exist above the horizontal line are part of or have direct control over the state. Of course, this mapping both simplifies Gramscis theory and also includes only a small number of relevant organizations. However, it does provide a demonstration of the way sociological theory might be applied to the question of power mapping. In addition to applying sociological theory to power mapping, a broad range of empirical sociological literatures can themselves be investigated via power mapping. The fundamental starting point of my research in the San Francisco homeless policy field was the hypothesis that if sociological field theory was valid, it should be able to be used to empirically map out a particular political field, and then based on that mapping to strategize real time interventions within the field. The first theoretical dilemma, however, was defining what I meant by a field and how I could map it. Sociological field theory is a somewhat heterogeneous body of literature, though as Martin (2003) points out, there are indeed significant commonalities amongst its variations. Two of the most important current approaches to field theory are (1) the neo-institutionalist approach and (2) the Bourdieuian approach (Bourdieu 1990, 1991a; Bourdieu and Wacquant 1992; DiMaggio 1986, 1991; DiMaggio and Powell 1983; Fligstein 2001; Fourcade-Gourinchas 2007; Ray 1998). I chose to base my field mapping in San Francisco primarily on the neoinstitutionalist approach, and particularly on Fligstein and McAdams theory of strategic action fields.2 More recently, McAdam and Scott have proposed an approach to fields extremely similar to Fligstein and McAdams (McAdam and Scott
2

This theory is outlined in two unpublished works: Fligstein, Neil and Douglas McAdam. 1995. A political-cultural approach to the problem of strategic action.: Unpublished manuscript.; Fligstein, Neil and Douglas McAdam. 2003. Politics, Culture, and Action: An Essay on Collective Strategic Action: Unpublished Manuscript.

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2005). I found that Fligstein and McAdams neo-institutionalist approach was much more applicable than Borudieus when trying to empirically map San Francisco homeless policy field relationships in a way that would directly facilitate the capacity of field actors to better undertake strategic action in the field. In Fligstein and McAdams theory of strategic action fields, a field is made up of the group of organizations and actors that must recognize and account for each other when taking strategic action. The degree to which different actors must orient their actions towards others depends on the degree of power which they have in a field. Actors usually take the role of either a dominant field incumbent or a more peripheral field challenger. Fields contain conceptions of control which govern the action of individual organizations as well as the collective action of the field (Fligstein 1990). The conception of control is fashioned and diffused by dominant incumbents so as to reinforce their own power. Thus political contests within fields are often contests over the conceptions of control within the field. Incumbents try to maintain the conceptions on which their power is based, while challengers try to subvert those conceptions. One of the aspects of Fligstein and McAdams approach which made it easier to use for power mapping is that they focus on the field as a group of actors who directly connect to and strategically account for each other. In contrast, Bourdieu focuses not on the direct connections of field actors, but on the construction of a field order based on principles of division hidden to field actors but known by the researcher. For Bourdieu, empirical connections of actors are not as important as the field hierarchy set by relative possession of field-specific capital. Emirbayer and Williams, for example, undertake a Bourdieuian analysis of the New York city homeless shelter field (Emirbayer and Williams 2005). While Emirbayar and Williams offer some valuable contributions for thinking about social service agencies and their clients, their work is not so easily translated into a strategic tool that can be used by actors seeking to address New York homeless policy. Moreover, they limit their field to only homeless shelters and homeless clients. This misses the broader context of the citywide political battles which shape the lives of homeless people in New York, such as struggles over quality of life citations and the criminalization of homelessness (Dwyer 2005; Mitchell 1997). However, this is perhaps more a reflection of the way Emirbayar and Williams construct their field than it is an indictment of the Bourdieuian approach. It is perfectly conceivable that an analyst could apply a Bourdieuian approach to power mapping a homeless policy field, and produce a mapping much more strategically and practically useful than the one I created in San Francisco. This is again, the challenge and excitement of power mapping as a research agenda. Another sociological literature that I found most relevant to power mapping is social network theory. Social network analysts have developed quantitative methods for collecting data about actor relationships and detailed technical procedures for analyzing them (Hanneman and Riddle 2005; Smith-Doerr and Powell 2005; White, Boorman, and Breiger 1976). This literature has also been complemented by more ethnographic and qualitative approaches to networks, especially studies focusing on social capital and social support (Cranford 2005; Dominguez and Watkins 2003; Small 2006; Smith 2005). Unfortunately, however, the quantitative literature on formal network analysis often implodes and focuses so much on miniscule questions

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about network structure, that it forgets to relate itself to meaningful social questions and it omits a model of politics and institutions (Fligstein 1996). Employing formal network analysis in power mapping can help to overcome some of these problems, and can provide network theory a real world application in which to grapple with the meaning of network structures and properties. Another aspect of power mapping that I considered was how to devise power maps that include measures of cognitive dimensions, institutional logics, and public opinion. Trying to find empirical measures for how cognitive and cultural dimensions shape power structures and social change brings us back to one of the foundational questions of sociology, perhaps most famously first explored by Weber in the Protestant Ethic (Weber 1958)how does one measure ideas or trace their social, economic, and political impacts? Recently, numerous scholars have attempted to answer this question utilizing a variety of approaches to understanding the role of ideas, paradigms, institutional logics, and causal stories in policymaking (Campbell 1998, 2001; Fourcade-Gourinchas and Babb 2002; Hall 1993; Somers and Block 2005; Stone 1989; Weir 1992). Applying these theories to power mapping could be fruitful for both sociologists and specific publics. There are surely other sociological theories from sub-fields as diverse as the sociology of gender, to the sociology of education, the sociology of stratification, the sociology of race, the sociology of organizations, and of course political sociology, that similarly can have theoretical insights gleamed, employed, tested, and expanded by power mapping research. Rather, than attempting to be exhaustive here in presenting how all these literatures can fit into a power mapping research agenda, I have instead simply highlighted some of the sociological literatures which I considered most in my own experiments with power mapping. In doing so, I am suggesting a few concrete areas in which sociological literature could usefully fit into power mapping research. More broadly, I am trying to illustrate power mapping as one example of how sociologists can symbiotically engage publics by developing generalizable tools of analysis which publics can use to assess their own sociological context.

Towards Concrete Strategies for Public Sociology Since Michael Buroways 2004 address to the American Sociological Association and his global travels on behalf of public sociology, the sociological world has been alive with debates about what public sociology is, whether it is desirable or necessary, how to understand its role within the discipline, and whether Buroways four part division of the sociological enterprise is the appropriate way to categorize the landscape of sociological production (Boyns and Fletcher 2005; Burawoy 2005; Hutter 2005; Miller and Perrucci 2004; Nichols 2005; Tittle 2004; Turner 2005, 2006). While a diversity of opinions exist around these questions, a strong contingent of scholars have indeed voiced the opinions that public sociology is important and that there can be a positive synergistic relationship between public sociology and professional sociology. Ironically, however, this very debate about public sociology has often been conducted in an abstract, hyper-theoretical discourse which is precisely one of the factors that has disconnected so much sociology from general publics. Aside from a few notable exceptions, such as Diane Vaughans

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(2005) discussion of her own experiences as a public sociologist working with NASA, this debate has lacked concrete examinations of how public sociology can be conducted. As Beck (2005) points out, however, a major problem for public sociology is that sociology does not understand how to directly become a part of public discourse and practice without being reinterpreted to suit the interests of others. There is a disconnection between the production of sociological knowledge and its use. What is needed then is consideration of concrete strategies for how sociologists can plan not only knowledge production, but the corresponding use of that knowledge by active publics once it has been produced. In this article, I have advocated power mapping as one such strategy, which can simultaneously add to professional sociological knowledge and theory while assisting publics. More broadly, I have argued for power mapping as a specific example of a public sociological research agenda which seeks to harness sociological theory and knowledge in order to create generalizable tools which specific publicssuch as social movements, policy makers, concerned citizens, voluntary associations, and community organizationscan then use to develop their own strategic assessments of the sociological contexts in which they act. I am not, however, in any way suggesting that all sociology should be about power mapping or creating generalizable tools. Submitting all sociological knowledge to the test of being practically applicable, whether in power mapping exercises or other publicly utilizable analytical tools, would eliminate much of the purpose, value, subtlety, and sophistication of sociology. Not even all public sociology should submit to the test of utilizing or developing publicly employable analytic techniques. The vast majority of public sociology will and should remain of the two types described in the introduction of this article: (1) using specialized scientific methods and data collection to build a body of useful knowledge about particular social issues or problems, and (2) participatory research methods. The approach to public sociology discussed in this articledeveloping generalizable analytical toolsprovides an important and underdeveloped third approach to public sociology, one which seeks to bridge scientifically devised issue specific research with participatory research approaches. As such, this type of public sociology may be one of the best avenues for sociologists to work in true collaboration with publics, and for publics to participate in shaping sociology. If the drive towards public sociology is to avoid becoming merely an effort by sociologists to make themselves feel more important or more heard in the world, then it must involve a genuine dialogue between sociologists and publics. It must involve a mutual interaction in which sociologists are willing to listen to and learn from publics, and not simply to proclaim the sociological truth to publics. The ultimate point of public sociology should not be for sociologists to seek greater power for themselves by cultivating strong connections to political decision makers and by broadly diffusing our ideas such that they shape the world according to our professional, theoretical, or personal projections. Rather, public sociology should seek to participate democratically in the creation of a world of shared, responsible, and mutual power for all. The power mapping research agenda suggested here is one of many ways in which sociologists can approach that monumental task in collaboration with publics.

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Acknowledgments The author would like to express gratitude to Laura Enriquez, Neil Fligstein, Peter Evans, Ann Swidler, Paul Boden, Diana Valentine, Juan Prada, and Michael Burawoy for their help and encouragement with this research project. This research was conducted in part under the support of a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship.

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