In an earlier post I mentioned that agent-based models provide a substantially different way of approaching the problem of pandemic modeling. ABM models are generative simulations of processes that work incrementally through the behavior of discrete agents; so modeling an epidemic using this approach is a natural application. In an important recent research effort Gianluca …
Generativity and emergence
Social entities and structures have properties that exercise causal influence over all of us, and over the continuing development of the society in which we live. Schools, corporations, armies, terror networks, transport networks, markets, churches, and cities all fall in this range -- they are social compounds or entities that shape the behavior of the …
ABM fundamentalism
I've just had the singular opportunity of participating in the habilitation examination of Gianluca Manzo at the Sorbonne, based on his excellent manuscript on the relevance of agent-based models for justifying causal claims in the social sciences. Manzo is currently a research fellow in sociology at CNRS in Paris (Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique), …
Computational social science
Is it possible to elucidate complex social outcomes using computational tools? Can we overcome some of the issues for social explanation posed by the fact of heterogeneous actors and changing social environments by making use of increasingly powerful computational tools for modeling the social world? Ken Kollman, John Miller, and Scott Page make the affirmative …
Generativism
There is a seductive appeal to the idea of a "generative social science". Joshua Epstein is one of the main proponents of the idea, most especially in his book, Generative Social Science: Studies in Agent-Based Computational Modeling. The central tool of generative social science is the construction of an agent-based model (link). The ABM is said …
Modifying an epidemiological model for party recruitment
youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HYdf8bUSFg0 Here I'll follow up on the idea of using an epidemiological model to capture the effects of political mobilization through organization. One of the sample models provided by the NetLogo library is EpiDEM Basic (link). This model simulates an infectious disease moving through a population through person-to-person contact. We can adapt this model …
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Microfoundations and causal powers
Image: Three Mile Island control room There isn't a lot of cross-over between the microfoundations literature (Peter Hedstrom, Dissecting the Social: On the Principles of Analytical Sociology) and the causal-powers literature (Greco and Groff, Powers and Capacities in Philosophy: The New Aristotelianism). People who advocate the importance of microfoundations in the social sciences are usually …
Modeling organizational recruitment
One defect of the ABMs considered in the prior post about the emergence of civil conflict is that they do not incorporate the workings of organizations into the dynamics of mobilization. And yet scholars like Tilly (Dynamics of Contention) and Bianco (Peasants without the Party: Grassroots Movements in Twentieth Century China) make it clear that …
ABM approaches to social conflict
Source: Pfautz and Salwen (link) An earlier post addressed the question of the dynamics through which a stable community consisting of multiple groups may begin to polarize and fission into antagonisms and conflict. I speculated there that the tools of agent-based modeling might be of use here. What I had in mind was something like …
A survey of agent-based models
Federico Bianchi and Flaminio Squazzoni have published a very useful survey of the development and uses of agent-based models in the social sciences over the past twenty-five years in WIREs Comput Stat 2015 (link). The article is a very useful reference and discussion for anyone interested in the applicability of ABM within sociology. Here …
Understanding Society 