Although it is called a "theory" ANT does not usually explain why a network takes the form that it does. It is much more interested in exploringhow actor-networks get formed, hold themselves together, or fall apart.
The approach is related to other versions of material-semiotics (and notably the work of philosophers Gilles Deleuze and Michel Foucault and feminist scholar Donna Haraway). It can also be seen as a way of being faithful to the insights of ethnomethodology. There are also obvious links to symbolic interactionist approaches such as the newer forms of grounded theory like situational analysis that seek to frame social circumstances as various forms of relationships associated with situations.
Broadly speaking, ANT is a constructivist approach in that it avoids essentialist explanations of events or innovations (e.g. explaining a successful theory by saying it is 'true' and the others are 'false'). However, it is distinguished from many other STS and sociological network theory for its distinct material-semiotic approach.
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