Network Analysis, Culture, and the Problem of Agency

TLDR

Network analysis is a promising sociological approach yet lacks a theoretically informed assessment and critique. The article outlines the theoretical presuppositions of network analysis and distinguishes three implicit models of how social structure, culture, and human agency interrelate. It delineates these three models and sketches the broad contours of a theoretical synthesis that integrates social structure and culture. The authors conclude that only a historically explanatory strategy synthesizing social structural and cultural analysis can adequately explain the formation, reproduction, and transformation of networks.

Abstract

Network analysis is one of the most promising currents in sociological research, and yet it has never been subjected to a theoretically informed assessment and critique. This article outlines the theoretical presuppositions of network analysis. It also distinguishes between three different (implicit) models in the network literature of the interrelations of social structure, culture, and human agency. It concludes that only a strategy for historical explanation that synthesizes social structural and cultural analysis can adequately explain the formation, reproduction, and transformation of networks themselves. The article sketches the broad contours of such a theoretical synthesis in the conclusion.