Contrary to common perception and belief, most island societies of the Pacific were not isolated, but were connected to other island societies by relations of kinship and marriage, trade and tribute, language and history. Using network models from graph theory, the authors analyse the formation of island empires, the social basis of dialect groups, the emergence of economic and political centres, the evolution and devolution of social stratification and the evolution of kinship terminologies, marriage systems and descent groups from common historical prototypes. The book is at once a unique and important contribution to Oceania studies, anthropology and social network analysis.

Social network analysis is used widely in the social and behavioral sciences, as well as in economics, marketing, and industrial engineering. The social network perspective focuses on relationships among social entities and is an important addition to standard social and behavioral research, which is primarily concerned with attributes of the social units. Social Network Analysis: Methods and Applications reviews and discusses methods for the analysis of social networks with a focus on applications of these methods to many substantive examples. It is a reference book that can be used by those who want a comprehensive review of network methods, or by researchers who have gathered network data and want to find the most appropriate method by which to analyze it. It is also intended for use as a textbook as it is the first book to provide comprehensive coverage of the methodology and applications of the field.

As the analysis of social networks, or networks of interpersonal and social relationships among social groups, has become an increasingly important method of research in several of the social and behavioural sciences, the gathering of network data has outpaced the development of new methods for its analysis. Addressing the need for analytical tools, Philippa Pattison presents a number of algebraic models for the analysis of network data, explaining in the process the rationale for an algebraic approach. Models are developed for both complete networks, meaning those representing the social ties between all pairs of members in a given group, and local networks, meaning those structured around the social ties of one particular group member. Many applications are presented and the ways that these methods can address a number of important issues confronting network analysis are explained.

In this book, the author proposes an interesting approach to the study of one of the most central concepts in social analysis, that of social structure. He provides a critique of the leading models and argues that each is inadequate to the task of explaining the complexity of structures that make up society and the processes by which these structures are formed and are interlinked. A conceptualization of the processes of societal formation is then presented, drawing on developments in the physical, biological and cognitive sciences. This conceptualization allows for the multiplicity of processes of structuration, which the author refers to as logics, some of which function at the individual or 'micro' level, others at the organizational or 'meso' level, and still others at the society-wide, or 'macro' level. The author terms this conceptualization a theory of heterarchy and it is a truly comprehensive theory of societal structuration.

In this book, nine scholars representing various perspectives examine institutions that govern economic activity in the United States and the dramatic changes they have undergone since the late nineteenth century. They investigate how and why these changes occurred and continue to occur as markets become more volatile, technology changes and international competition becomes more intense. They also address general questions about the governance of capitalist economies by considering several governance mechanisms such as markets, bureaucratic hierarchies, associations and informal networks and by exploring how such mechanisms emerge to coordinate economic activity and affect economic performance. The first part of the book describes the important characteristics of these organisational forms and provides an overview of institutional development in the US economy. The second part includes case studies of the institutional development of eight economic sectors. Finally, based on data from these case studies, the third part of the book tests competing theories of institutional change in capitalism, develops a new evolutionary model of the change process, and offers an original analysis of how the state influences this process.

This book examines almost two decades of research using the structural or network approach to political behaviour. Network analysis begins with the assumption that the most important elements of political power are the relationships of influence and domination among social actors. Influence is exchange of information about preferences and intentions; domination is the exchange of material sanctions to reward or punish compliance with commands. By examining the confluence of these two networks, analysts can develop a structural picture of the political process.

Within the last decade, researchers studying business organizations have come to realize that corporate behaviour cannot be explained in terms of the actions of individual firms alone, and that in order to understand how businesses operate it is necessary to explore the relationships among them. This volume constitutes the first compilation of work by leading international scholars who have adopted a structural approach to the study of business, taking relations among companies as the fundamental unit of analysis, and examining the behaviour of individual firms within that framework. In their introduction to the volume, the editors analyze the historical and intellectual context of this rapidly growing area of research. The essays that follow include position statements by leading spokespersons for the two major structural perspectives on intercorporate relations - the resource dependence and social class views; national studies of the comparative historical development of intercorporate structures in Britain, France and Germany; essays on markets, money, and relations between corporations and cities; analyses of business structures in Europe, Latin America, japan and the US; and a chapter on transnational business relations. The volume as a whole will demonstrate to a broader public the significance and value of a structural approach to business studies, and will appeal to sociologists, organization theorists, business scholars, economists, political scientists, and business historians.