Network Topology and the Dynamics of Collective Action

本文是对网络拓扑结构对集体行动动力学影响的探索性研究。这个为期一年的项目将包括三个核心活动：使用基于主体模型的一系列计算实验，为新的研究生研讨会开发课程，以及组织一个国际跨学科研讨会。该建议将注意力转移到社会关系的配置上，通过这种配置，参与集体行动可以作为级联传播。该提案还通过使用为大型网络级联建模而开发的计算方法来探索社会关系结构如何影响有界理性行为者异质群体中参与集体行动的传播，从而弥合了动力系统研究与集体行动博弈论模型之间的学科差距。拟议的研讨会将促进从事类似问题的社会和自然科学家之间的理论思想、技能和方法的交流，但对潜在的协同作用的相互认识或欣赏很少，并且没有交流思想或结果的共同语言。从长远来看，本项目开发的研究生课程将有助于培养新一代社会科学家使用计算建模技术，这些技术刚刚开始从自然科学和计算科学迁移过来。

This proposal is an exploratory study of the effects of network topology on the dynamics of collective action. The one-year project will involve three core activities: a series of computational experiments using agent-based models, curriculum development for a new graduate seminar, and organization of an international interdisciplinary workshop. The proposal shifts attention to the configuration of social ties through which participation in collective action can propagate as a cascade. The proposal also bridges the disciplinary gap between the study of dynamical systems and game-theoretic models of collective action, by using computational methods developed for modeling cascades on large networks to explore how the structure of social ties can affect the spread of participation in collective action in heterogeneous populations of boundedly rational actors. The proposed workshop will promote the exchange of theoretical ideas, skills, and methodologies between social and natural scientists working on similar problems but with minimal mutual awareness or appreciation of potential synergies and no common language for communicating ideas or results. In the longer term, the graduate curriculum developed in this project will help to train a new generation of social scientists in the use of computational modeling techniques that are just beginning to migrate over from the natural and computational sciences.