Social Network Theories: An Overview

Abstract

AbstractRegarding network theory, John Scott argues:“[...] [T]heoretical work has long been underdeveloped in social network analysis. While the methods themselves do not require or imply any particular sociological theory, they do require theoretical contextualisation in wider debates” (Scott,2011, p. 24).Although the theorization of networks has long been neglected, there has been intensive theoretical debate on the concept of social relations and their structures since the early twentieth century. It is generally assumed that people are embedded in relationships and cannot be viewed in isolation from their social environment. Individual dyads, relationships between two actors, are connected to larger units, so-called networks. Networks are located at the meso-level. They are thus a link between the micro-level, or the individual action (agency), and the macro-level, or the institutions (Weyer, 2012, p. 241). Accordingly, networks consist of actors who build relationships with one another and those relationships create overall social structures. The theoretical interest is not based on so-called classical attributes of individuals, like gender, race, or age, or characteristics of institutions, but on relationships and their structures and the embedding of the actors within a network. The starting point of research questions includes relations, the embeddedness of the individuals within a network, and the interaction between social structure and individual attributes.