RAND_MR1382

Classic studies concern topics like friendship cliques among school children, interlocking
memberships in corporate boards, job search and occupational mobility patterns that
depend on personal connections, partnerships among business firms, and even the
structure of the world economic and political system. When a social network analyst
studies a primitive tribe, a hierarchical bureaucracy, or a market system, he or she
searches for the formal and informal networks that undergird it and emphasizes their
roles in making that social organization or system work the way it does (e.g., as in
Granovetter, 1985).
In this view, power and influence depend less on one’s personal attributes (e.g.,
resources, attitudes, behaviors) than on one’s interpersonal relations—the location and
character of one’s ties in and to the network. The “unit of analysis” is not so much the
individual as it is the network in which the individual is embedded. Not unlike
complexity theorists, social network analysts view a network as a systemic whole that is
greater than and different from its parts. An essential aim is to show how the properties
of the parts are defined by their networked interactions, and how a network itself
functions to create opportunities or constraints for the individuals in it.
Many social network analysts stress the importance of location: as in whether an actor’s
power and prestige stem from his “centrality” in a network, or whether he has greater
autonomy and potential power if he is located at a “structural hole” 12 (a kind of
“nonredundant” location that can provide an opening or bridge to an actor in a nearby
network). Other analysts stress the importance of the links between actors: whether the
ties are strong (tightly coupled) or weak (loosely coupled), and what difference this may
make for acquiring and acting on information about what is happening in and around
the network. 13 Other questions may be asked about the overall “connectedness” of a
network, and the degrees of “reciprocity” and “mutuality” that characterize flows and
exchanges within it.
For social network analysts, then, what is keenly interesting about individuals is not
their “human capital” (personal properties) but their “social capital” (interpersonal or
relational properties). Social networks are often said to be built out of social capital.
Many—the ones that tend to be favored in a society, such as business partnerships—
thrive when mutual respect and trust are high. But the cohesion and operation of other
social networks—such as illicit ones for access to drugs and prostitution—may not
require much respect or trust.
Social network analyses tend to be intricately methodological, placing a premium on
mathematical modeling and visualization techniques. 14 Although there are exceptions
related to measures of efficiency and effectiveness, these analyses are generally not
normative or prescriptive, in the sense of observing that one kind of network structure
may be better than another for a particular activity, such as a business alliance or a
social movement. Moreover, these analyses are not evolutionary, in the sense of