Scott McClellan and Social Network Analysis

Last Monday, the Washington Post had an article on social network analysis. The article made the point, using an analysis of smoking patterns based on the Framingham epidemiological study, that the behavior of one's social network are sometimes more predictive of one's own decisions than are one's own reported attitudes.

Scott McClellan was a deputy Press Secretary in the White House early in this administration. His social network at the time would have been the inner circle of the Bush administration, and they would have been likely to share a number of attitudes. It would not be surprising if McClellan absorbed the positions of those associates. This is especially true since he was a relatively low ranking person among the holders of the most important political offices in the nation, and indeed possibly in the world. I was amazed when I worked in the White House at the impact that the prestige of the offices had on my opinions and those of others.

I also note that acting for the Office of the Press Secretary, his responsibility was to represent the positions of the administration, not to make public his own opinions. (And indeed, I suspect that the higher ranking members of the administration would not have been much interested in Mr. McClellan's opinions, had he tried to express them within the administration.) It must be almost impossible to effectively represent opinions of those one serves and respects as a full time job, while maintaining separate, independent opinions one can not share.

Mr. McClellan has now had several years working on his memoir of his time in office. He of course has learned, as have we all, a great deal more about the results of the positions he defended in the early years of the decade. I suppose that when he left the White House he broke contact with the White House network, and he must have formed new network connections with his editor and others as he wrote and prepared his book for publication. So I wonder how much of his change in public statements of his opinions can be attributed to:

• actual learning on his part, especially learning due to new analysis of the situation,
• substitution of the opinions of the members of his new network for those of his former (White House) network members.
• desire to sell a lot of books.

Since McClellan is a skilled journalist, who has in the past made money in service to the representation of views he did not necessarily share, this latter possibility can not be totally rejected.

David Brooks, commenting on McClellan's book, argued that the Bush administration had relatively few members who were capable of developing thoughtful, analytical positions on foreign policy, and of forcefully arguing those positions in the internal forums of the White House. Indeed, he suggests that this administration has failed to conduct detailed debates on critically important foreign policy issues before taking important decisions.

If we accept the concept that there is a social construction of knowledge and understanding even in the White House, then it would seem fundamental that that social process include informed and thoughtful individuals who forcefully argue their alternative views of the issues and their alternative proposals for action. One can only hope that Brooks is wrong about the Bush administration, and more importantly, that future administrations will utilize strong procedures for the construction of their positions and decisions.