RELATIONAL EQUILIBRIUM IN A SOCIAL TOPOLOGY

The purpose of this discussion is to transform the implicit equilibrium assumption endemic to network analysis into an explicit instrument for such analysis. I propose a formal model that brings together Coleman's restriction of Walras' general equilibrium model and recent developments in describing the “social topology” of a multiple network system of actors such that a class of relational equilibria is defined. The specific equilibrium expected in a system is a function of the previously existing stratification of actors in the system. Corresponding to multiple observed networks, the model generates multiple equilibrium networks. The structural analysis of the observed networks can therefore be repeated on the equilibrium networks so as to assess the extent to which the analysis would differ if the observed relations were actually in an equilibrium state. Numerical illustration is provided by an analysis of alternative relational equilibria in the system of elite experts in methodological and mathematical sociology as such a system existed in 1975. © 1979, Taylor & Francis Group, LLC. All rights reserved.