| Summary: | The micro-macro link may be regarded as a dynamic process in which actors interpret local patterns of relations as indicators or elements of an overarching structure, communicate their interpretations, and adjust their relations to the overall structure as they perceive it. In this paper, it is proposed that actors perceive local substructures in a network of evaluations, such as dyads, triads, or short semicycles, and infer clustering and ranking in ways that are compatible with balance-theoretic models. They interpret and communicate the information as simplified and idealized classifications resembling blockmodels, to which they adjust their relations afterwards. In this way, the ego-centered and socio-centered perspectives are dynamically related.This approach is applied to evaluations among authors and critics in the literary institution. At the micro level, literary authors and critics adjust their evaluations to previous evaluations. At the global level, the institution of literature is stratified into clusters, e.g., literary movements and styles. The members of this institution reflect on its structure: classifications according to movement and style are communicated and discussed in literary criticism.
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