Communities in Affiliation Networks with Attitudunal Actors

Network Communities within Analytical Sociology One of the core issues (if not the core issue) in analytical sociology is the investigation of the micro-macro link in social phenomena (Hedström & Swedberg, 1998, Hedström, 2005). Analytical sociology endorses a social mechanism-based type of explanation according to which causal relationships between social phenomena at the macro-level are explained through the patterns of individuals' action and interaction at the micro-level. This explanatory scheme is clearly illustrated by the concatenation of a number of causal mechanisms encoded in the so-called Coleman's boat (Coleman, 1990). In Coleman's architecture, the first causal mechanisms bridging a certain macro-level phenomenon X (the explanans) with the relevant underlying micro-level processes are situational mechanisms, through which social structures constrain individuals' action and cultural settings shape individuals' motives and dispositions (desires, beliefs etc.). Subsequently, individuals develop their action and interaction at the micro-level through some action-formation mechanisms, typically understood as operating on an informal social network, in which network actors are the implicated individuals and network ties correspond to patterns of deployed interactions. Finally, the individuals' social network is lifted onto the macro-level through some transformational mechanisms, which generate various intended and unintended social outcomes identifying a certain social phenomenon Y (the explanandum). In summary, according to the typology of Coleman's boat, the causal macro-level association of the explanans social phenomenon X with the explanandum social phenomenon Y is established through the concatenation of three