Endogenizing geopolitical boundaries with agent-based modeling
Endogenizing geopolitical boundaries with agent-based modeling
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DOI：
10.1073/pnas.082081099
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发表时间：
2002-05-14
影响因子：
11.1
通讯作者：
Cederman, LE
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Cederman, LE
基于主体的建模有望克服角色的具体化。虽然这种常见但有限的假设在以稳定的行动者边界为特征的时期非常有意义，但其他历史转折点，如冷战的结束，表现出行动者空间和组织存在的深远而迅速的转变。此外，由于不能假设行动者在长期内保持不变，对宏观历史过程的分析几乎总是需要“社会”的内生化。本文提出了一系列的计算模型，实现与软件包REPAST，跟踪复杂的宏观历史的演员的转变，他们的层次组织为关系网络或集合的符号类别。对于前者，动态网络具有新兴的复合演员与代理隔间表示在一个空间网格捕获领土国家的组织统治。此外，“标记”社会过程的模型允许分析师展示民主国家如何根据分类特征来预测他们的行为。最后，分类图式，选择出政治相关的文化特征，在民族景观形式化的建构主义概念的民族认同与民族主义的定性文献一致。这种“有限主体方法”将国家和民族都表示为叠加在原始主体或文化特征的较低层次网格上的较高层次结构，避免了主体的具体化。此外，它打开了大门，明确分析实体的过程，如整合和解体的演员以及边界转换。
Agent-based modeling promises to overcome the reification of actors. Whereas this common, but limiting, assumption makes a lot of sense during periods characterized by stable actor boundaries, other historical junctures, such as the end of the Cold War, exhibit far-reaching and swift transformations of actors' spatial and organizational existence. Moreover, because actors cannot be assumed to remain constant in the long run, analysis of macrohistorical processes virtually always requires "sociational" endogenization. This paper presents a series of computational models, implemented with the software package REPAST, which trace complex macrohistorical transformations of actors be they hierarchically organized as relational networks or as collections of symbolic categories. With respect to the former, dynamic networks featuring emergent compound actors with agent compartments represented in a spatial grid capture organizational domination of the territorial state. In addition, models of "tagged" social processes allows the analyst to show how democratic states predicate their behavior on categorical traits. Finally, categorical schemata that select out politically relevant cultural traits in ethnic landscapes formalize a constructivist notion of national identity in conformance with the qualitative literature on nationalism. This "finite-agent method", representing both states and nations as higher-level structures superimposed on a lower-level grid of primitive agents or cultural traits, avoids reification of agency. Furthermore, it opens the door to explicit analysis of entity processes, such as the integration and disintegration of actors as well as boundary transformations.