How Do Researchers Define Hierarchy Within the Social Sciences? A Systematic Review

Social science does not use the word hierarchy consistently. The term may be used to describe qualitatively different social relations and systems such as rank and prestige, nested organizational structures, and top-down control structures; placing all of these meanings under one term causes misunderstandings and misinterpretations. We use a computer-aided systematic quantitative literature review to identify social science papers that define hierarchy, then analyze that set of definitions (n = 1,121) to identify whether they fall within a pre-existing control-nest-rank ontology of hierarchy or some other type. We find that the control-nest-rank typology provides valid coverage for definitions of hierarchy across the social sciences, but is better seen as three different dimensions of hierarchical structure. Few definitions (1%) lay outside these dimensions—mostly network measures. We also find that in most fields the majority of definitions of hierarchy are unclear, obscuring what authors are emphasizing and leaving uncertain foundations for further inquiries. Nearly all the definitions of hierarchy we extracted referred to one or more distinct dimensions of social relationship—rank, nested, or control relations—that have specific meanings. Analysis of words that co-occur with particular definitions of hierarchy shows that different sets of terms support control, nest, and rank as distinct dimensions of hierarchy even when they are mixed in particular definitions. Thus, we recommend that researchers use the control-nest-rank ontology to explicitly identify the hierarchical relations of interest in their work and increase the consistency and clarity of their work within and between social science fields.