ABSTRACT
The Network Theory is a structuralist sociological perspective. A structural investigation abstracts from actors' characteristics, or attributes. Both in anthropology and in sociology, a network is a set of direct and indirect connections among social actors, which may be persons, groups, countries or organizations. The study of networks has, therefore, a structural character. The social structure is a set of orderly and stable links established by a plurality of actors: more precisely, it is intended as a network formed, in turn, by the networks the actors establish and maintain. A large part of the traditional sociological research has instead focused on the relations between variables, as for example, between class position and political preference. Social capital is a set of permanently available links, or connections, for those who want to benefit from them. Other empirical studies of social networks concern networks intended as a structure of relations, rather than Ego-centric networks.
