Networks and Neo-Structural Sociology
Abstract
This chapter introduces a neo-structural theoretical framework in sociology. It shows how social and organizational network analyses help explore the use of personalized relationships for management of cooperation dilemmas. Notions and measurements of relational infrastructures show how members navigate social processes (including solidarity, control regulation, and learning) to transform them into social capital of their collective. Focus on regulation helps develop a neo-structural institutionalism, tracking, for example, institutional entrepreneurs with high, heterogeneous and inconsistent forms of social status, who punch above their weight in normative controversies by exploiting oppositional solidarities and rhetorics of sacrifice. This framework leads to new examination of social inequalities by introducing dynamic and multilevel relational infrastructures, with notions such as organizational stratigraphy, dynamic invariants, multilevel status of vertical linchpins, intermediary-level social niches, and synchronization costs.