ABSTRACT
Research on social networks and social capital can receive an important impetus from the inclusion of comparative perspectives. Differentiation of contexts can provide new and incisive illumination to fi ndings that are hard to interpret within the frameworks of standard assumptions. Variation of settings is available, and need not be artifi cially produced. Existing cultural, institutional, and territorial differences among cases provide a strategic research site for the formulation and testing of comparisons, which may often be conducted in an experiment-like fashion.
