This article traces the contours of a comparative, global, cross-disciplinary, and multiparadigmatic field that construes ethnicity, race, and nationhood as a single integrated family of forms of cultural understanding, social organization, and political contestation. It then reviews a set of diverse yet related efforts to study the way ethnicity, race, and nation work in social, cultural, and political life without treating ethnic groups, races, or nations as substantial entities, or even taking such groups as units of analysis at all.

Ethnicity, Race, and Nationalism

In the 1990s, Agent-Based Modeling (ABM) began gaining popularity and represents a departure from the more classical simulation approaches. This departure, its recent development and its increasing application by non-traditional simulation disciplines indicates the need to continuously assess the current state of ABM and identify opportunities for improvement. To begin to satisfy this need, we surveyed and collected data from 279 articles from 92 unique publication outlets in which the authors had constructed and analyzed an agent-based model. From this large data set we establish the current practice of ABM in terms of year of publication, field of study, simulation software used, purpose of the simulation, acceptable validation criteria, validation techniques and complete description of the simulation. Based on the current practice we discuss six improvements needed to advance ABM as an analysis tool. These improvements include the development of ABM specific tools that are independent of software, the development of ABM as an independent discipline with a common language that extends across domains, the establishment of expectations for ABM that match their intended purposes, the requirement of complete descriptions of the simulation so others can independently replicate the results, the requirement that all models be completely validated and the development and application of statistical and non-statistical validation techniques specifically for ABM.

A Survey of Agent-Based Modeling Practices (January 1998 to July 2008)

In a world of states and dominated by states it is unsurprising that the maintenance of state boundaries would appear as a vital problem and that “state contraction,” “secession,” or “partition” would be figured, by most scholars and politicians, as evidence of public policy failure or as desperately exercised options of last resort. To be sure, in the 1990s some scholars revived interest in territorial self-determination via partition of existing states as a sometimes useful policy option for individual states and for the international community. Against a background of severe political instability in the Balkans, central Asia, Africa, the Middle East, and the former Soviet Union, it has been suggested that some political conflicts might be managed best by

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Secessionism in multicultural states: Does sharing power prevent or encourage it?

Objectives. We developed a preliminary agent-based simulation model designed to examine agent–environment interactions that support the development and maintenance of drinking behavior at the population level. Methods. The model was defined on a 1-dimensional lattice along which agents might move left or right in single steps at each iteration. Agents could exchange information about their drinking with each other. In the second generation of the model, a “bar” was added to the lattice to attract drinkers. Results. The model showed that changes in drinking status propagated through the agent population as a function of probabilities of conversion, rates of contact, and contact time. There was a critical speed of population mixing beyond which the conversion rate of susceptible nondrinkers was saturated, and the bar both enhanced and buffered the rate of propagation, changing the model dynamics. Conclusions. The models demonstrate that the basic dynamics underlying social influences on drinking behavior are shaped by contacts between drinkers and focused by characteristics of drinking environments.

Agent-Based Modeling of Drinking Behavior: A Preliminary Model and Potential Applications to Theory and Practice

Researchers across disciplines apply complexity theory to issues ranging from economic development to earthquake prediction. The breadth of applications speaks to the promise of complexity theory, but there remain a number of challenges to be met, particularly those related to its ontological and epistemological dimensions. We identify a number of key issues by asking three questions. Does complexity theory operate at too general a level to enhance understanding? What are the ontological and epistemological implications of complexity? What are the challenges in modeling complexity? In answering these questions, we argue that, although complexity offers much to the study of place and space, research in these areas has a number of strengths that enhance complexity research.

Complexity Theory in the Study of Space and Place

In this paper we used the methodology of agent-based modelling to help explaining why populations with very similar socio-demographic characteristics sometimes exhibit great differences in ethnic mobilisation levels during mobilisation processes. This agent-based model of ethnic mobilisation was inspired and developed by combining and extending several theories, ideas and modelling constructs that were already used in agent-based modelling of social processes. The model has been specifically adapted to account for some of the most important characteristics of ethnic mobilisation processes that took place in the former Yugoslavia. Results obtained by experimenting with the model indicate that the observed differences in mobilisation levels across populations may sometimes not be related to the variations within any particular socio-demographic factor, but merely to random differences in the initial states of the individuals. In this model these random differences primarily relate to the degrees of importance that individuals attach to their ethnic identity, as well as to the layout of social networks.

An Agent-Based Model of Ethnic Mobilisation

Dynamic modeling of ethnic conflicts

SUMMARY This paper provides an overview of important projects concerned with the development of databases on conflicts, crises and similar political events and those dealing with the structural characteristics of nation-states. The various databases are usually differently conceptualized, even when they describe the same phenomenon. Different conceptualization of the problem leads to distinct operational definitions, and eventually to divergent coding rules. Therefore, the researcher intending to use the existing data for statistical analysis or modelling social processes can become lost browsing the multitude of diverse datasets. In this overview, the short descriptions of important data-gathering projects include information on the institutions where the projects are placed, their principal investigators, time span and number of cases they include. Finally, all databases are classified according to their focus (event/structure) and their level (nation-state/international relations) of observation.

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Dražen Penzar

Papers

An Agent-Based Model of Ethnic Mobilisation

Dynamic modeling of ethnic conflicts

An overview of databases on conflicts and political crises