Models of the Diffusion of Collective Action

这是对集体行动扩散的数学研究。它发展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的影响的方式。事件历史扩散模型的最新进展被用作进一步发展扩散模型的基础，扩散模型可以捕捉时间和空间异质性，并充分捕捉周期的衰退阶段和上升阶段。为不同形式的行动之间以及政权与持不同政见者之间的相互作用建立了多方程模型。计算机仿真技术用于研究所有模型的全响应面，显示各种形式的行动的发生率如何随自变量的可能组合的全范围变化。模型的发展是为了代表有大量可靠经验数据的重要现象，包括几次集体暴力浪潮，以及1950-1990年美国民权运动和1975-1990年欧洲“新社会运动”的抗议周期。这些模型是参数化的，与已知数据一致，但包括变量和关系，这些变量和关系在已发表的报告中仍然是推测性的和未观察到的。替代的解释机制是严格探索和测试的拟合优度对现有数据。这个项目是对抽象的数学社会学的贡献。它将发展严格的形式理论，能够识别超越具体案例的一般模式和机制，但可以根据经验数据进行有意义的测试。因此，它将加强更多应用性或政策性研究所必须依赖的基本知识基础。

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.