Evolution of Social Networks [Hardcover]

This book answers the question of whether we can apply evolutionary theories to our understanding of the development of social structures.
Social networks have increasingly become the focus of many social scientists as a way of analyzing these social structures. While many powerful network analytic tools have been developed and applied to a wide range of empirical phenomena, understanding the evolution of social organization still requires theories and analyses of social network evolutionary processes. Researchers from a variety of disciplines have combined their efforts in what is an indication of some very promising future research and the work represented in this volume provides a basis for a sustained analysis of the evolution of social life.This book answers the question of whether we can apply evolutionary theories to our understanding of the developmwnt of social structures.Chapter 1 The Dynamics and Evolution of Social Networks, Doreian Patrick, Frans N. Stokman; Chapter 2 *We are grateful to Siegwart Lindenberg, Werner Raub, Frans N. Stokman, Rene Torenvlied, Peter Miihlau and Tom Boone for their careful criticisms and suggestions. Authors are listed alphabetically based on equal contributions. The paper was drafted during a research visit by the first author to Brandeis University, financed by the Dutch Science Foundation (grant no. SIR 12-1522). The second author wishes to acknowledge the support of the U.S. National Science Foundation (grant no. SBR-9312432). Direct all correspondence to Andreas Flache, email: a.flache@ppsw.rug.nl., Andreas Flache, Michael W. Macy; Chapter 3 The Emergence of Groups in the Evolution of Friendship Networks, Evelien P. H. Zeggelink, Frans N. Stokman, Gerhard G. Van De Bunt; Chapter 4 Social Structure, Networks, and E-State Structuralism Models, John Skvoretz, Katherine Faust, Thomas J. Fararo; Chapter 5 *The contribution of the first author was partly made while he was a Research Fellow at The Netherlands InstitutlCh