ABSTRACT
In their agenda of problems with respect to the theory of solidarity, Fararo and Doreian (1998) have formulated a call and a challenge to mathematical sociology to situate itself at the core of the sociological enterprise. What is taken as problematic in the foundational paper of Fararo and Doreian is "the very 'groupiness' of the group itself" (1998, p. 6). These writers accord prominence, substantively and analytically, to networks of interaction. Moreover, they call for models that "lift" these networks to "what is, for the actors, a higher-order social entity" (p. 6). At least as one major component of their agenda, they call for models and analyses of the group as an entity that emerges from social flux to be characterized dually as a social network with a structural form and as a higher-order social entity that transcends its individual members (p. 6).
