Generalized Blockmodeling

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.