According to Bernard Lepetit, "L'histoire est une bonne fille, un peu nonchalantemais toujours prête à suivre, sans trop discuter, qui vient de la séduire."This paper explores the specific concerns that are embedded in theoreticaland methodological modalities of research into collective action in the past.The limits and opportunities offered by concepts and hermeneutical strategiesborrowed from other sciences, in casu social sciences, have to be evaluatedby holding them against the yardstick of the implicit and explicit understandingsand operations chat structure the latter. The argument is developed viaa comparative analysis of a specific theme - academic policy in the archducalNetherlands (1598-1621) - from two different perspectives, each based on adifferent concept of the network as a framework of collective action. It arguesthat historians can safeguard their unique selling proposition by substitutingostensible models of society (in casu Social Network Theory) by a performativeconcept of collective action (in casu Actor Network Theory).
