Social network analysis from the perspective of African political philosophy

Social network analysis tracks the reach of human networks to understand how interpersonal interactions and relationships influence behavioural outcomes. There is great scope for research on sub-Saharan African elite politics through social network analysis, but one must also avoid an ‘off the shelf’ solution. The article engages African political philosophy to reconstruct the methodology, requiring that two assumptions be jettisoned: (1) the assumption that people necessarily choose their social networks; (2) the assumption that social networks give advantages to some people over others primarily through access to information and associated resource-based opportunities. It is instead better to see political networks in sub-Saharan Africa as primarily oriented towards reducing the risk of betrayal, with network advantage consisting in embeddedness rather than information, so as to avoid the tertius gaudens (the one who benefits when others are divided). The application of African political philosophy seeks to sharpen the method for global use.