Compare methods

	Generalized Blockmodeling	Positional Analysis
Field	Sociology	Sociology
Family	Process / pipeline	Process / pipeline
Year of origin	2005	1976
Originator	Patrick Doreian, Vladimir Batagelj & Anuška Ferligoj	Harrison White, Ronald Burt, and colleagues
Type	Direct optimization partition of a network into positions with typed blocks	Framework for identifying network positions and the roles among them
Seminal source	Doreian, P., Batagelj, V., & Ferligoj, A. (2005). Generalized Blockmodeling. Cambridge University Press. ISBN: 978-0-521-84085-9	Burt, R. S. (1976). Positions in networks. Social Forces, 55(1), 93–122.
Aliases	generalized blockmodel, direct blockmodeling, pre-specified blockmodeling, Doreian-Batagelj-Ferligoj blockmodeling	role analysis, positional role analysis, network role and position analysis, regular equivalence analysis
Related	5	5
Summary	Generalized blockmodeling, developed by Doreian, Batagelj, and Ferligoj, partitions the actors of a network into positions and simultaneously characterizes the ties between positions as one of several allowed block types — null, complete, regular, dominant, and others. Rather than the indirect, two-step approach of computing equivalences and then clustering, it directly searches for the partition that minimizes the inconsistency between the observed network and an idealized block structure, optionally one the analyst pre-specifies from theory.	Positional analysis is the network-analytic program that identifies the positions actors occupy — sets of actors equivalent in their relational patterns — and characterizes the system of roles that links those positions. Growing out of Harrison White's structuralism and Ronald Burt's operationalization in the 1970s, it treats the social structure as a small set of positions and the role relations among them, rather than as a collection of individual actors.