Network Persistence and the Axis of Hierarchy: How Orderly Stratification Is Implicit in Sticky Struggles

Network Persistence and the Axis of Hierarchy shows how networks, modestly redefined as a strong, yet imperfect tendency for pairings to recur day after day, that is, stickiness, imply a singular axis of stratification. This is contrary to the nearly universal insistence that stratification is multidimensional. Reanalysis of three central mobility data sets sustains the novel claim. Network concepts provide a supple base for analysis whereby order and regularity are strongly sustained in network neighborhoods but are not necessarily uniform or universal. This provides new takes, often quite radical, on accounts of structure and order by authors such as Pierre Bourdieu, Randall Collins and Talcott Parsons.

Steven Rytina is retired from McGill University where he was associate professor of sociology. He has also taught at Harvard University and SUNY at Albany. Rytina’s research interests include mathematical sociology, theories of social structure, social networks, and stratification and mobility.