Models of the Diffusion of Collective Action

这是对集体行动扩散的数学研究。 它开发了抗议周期或浪潮中集体行动扩散的数学模型，特别强调集体暴力和破坏性集体抗议的扩散，以及这些受到非破坏性抗议周期，运动组织的形成和制度化以及政权的社会控制努力影响的方式。 扩散的事件历史模型的最新进展被用作进一步发展的扩散模型，捕捉时间和空间的异质性，并充分捕捉一个周期的退潮阶段，以及它的崛起的基础。 多方程模型的发展之间的相互作用，不同形式的行动和政权和持不同政见者。 计算机模拟技术用于调查所有模型的完整响应面，显示各种形式的行动的发生率如何随自变量的全部可能组合而变化。模型的开发，以代表重要的现象，有一个坚实的经验数据，包括几波集体暴力，抗议周期的美国民权运动在1950年至1990年和欧洲的“新社会运动”在1975年至1990年。 这些模型被参数化以与已知数据保持一致，但包括在已公布的账户中仍然是推测性的和未观察到的变量和关系。 替代的解释机制进行了严格的探索和测试的拟合优度对现有的数据。 %%% 这个项目是对抽象的数学社会学的贡献。 它将发展严格的正式理论，能够识别超越具体案例的一般模式和机制，但可以对经验数据进行有意义的测试。 因此，它将加强基本的知识基础，更多的应用或面向政策的研究必须依赖于此。

This is a mathematical study of the diffusion of collective action. It develops mathematical models of the diffusion of collective action in cycles or waves of protest, with a particular emphasis on the diffusion of collective violence and disruptive collective protest and the ways these are affected by cycles of non-disruptive protest, the formation and institutionalization of movement organizations, and the social control efforts of regimes. Recent advances in event-history models of diffusion are used as the basis for further development of diffusion models which capture temporal and spatial heterogeneity and which adequately capture the ebbing phase of a cycle as well as its rise. Multiple-equation models are developed for the interplay among different forms of action and between regimes and dissidents. Computer simulation technologies are used to investigate the full response surface of all models, showing how the incidence of various forms of actions varies with the full range of possible combinations of independent variables. Models are developed to represent important phenomena for which there is a body of solid empirical data, including several waves of collective violence, and the protest cycles of the US Civil Rights Movement in 1950-1990 and the "new social movements" of Europe in 1975-1990. These models are parameterized to be consistent with known data, but include variables and relationships which remain speculative and unobserved in published accounts. Alternate explanatory mechanisms are rigorously explored and tested for goodness of fit against available data. %%% This project is a contribution to abstract, mathematical sociology. It will develop rigorous formal theory which is capable of identifying general patterns and mechanisms which transcend specific cases but which can be meaningfully tested against empirical data. Thus it will strengthen the fundamental intellectual basis upon which more applied or policy-oriented studies must rest.