Re: Modeling the Emergence of Political Parties

[Paul Johnson]

Darren Schreiber wrote:
> 
> But, the formal and game theorists are the Old Guard right now
> and my strategy with this paper is to show that agent based modeling has
> something to offer.  My thinking (a result of Lars-Erik Cederman's
> tutelage) is that my model stands a better chance in the discipline
> tactically if I show my chops in the classics and then start to improvise.

This is funny, I had the same thought. And guess what they said? "We
knew about those models already, you need to do something to show how
new and different things can be done with these simulations.

I have a paper in the new American Behavioral Scientist called
"Simulation modeling in Political Science".  In there, I make the
argument that the formal theories have the advantage of a clear goal--an
equilibrium and comparative statics.  With simulation, the problem is
that we often have no clear notion of what a result is, how to identify
something interesting.  You've already seen that, when you work on a
topic that the formal theory guys have tackled, they've laid out the
idea of results and the structure of the model so you know what you are
shooting for. If you launch off into some new research area, you have
trouble finding grounding and a notion of closure.

> 
> As to "proving" the results of the model, this I think is the critical
> issue for the agent-based modeling paradigm.  This model only uses
> randomness for the initial distribution of voter preferences.  If we wanted
> to tediously implement the algorithm by hand (the life of a game theorist)
> we could demonstrate the specific end of one run mathematically.  Each run
> of the model is strictly deductive.

Actually, I think it is academically interesting to invoke some chaos
ideas. Say you take 100 "statistically identical" starting conditions
and show how they develop in significantly different ways.  The goal of
most formal theory is to convince us that the conditions determine the
outcome, and they typically want the correspondence from initial
conditions to outcomes to be continuous. (Don't get on me about whether
it is upper-hemi continuous or lower, etc).  If you can get stark gaps
in the long run tendencies when the initial states are "arbitrarily
close", then you do have something on the verge of a deep thought and a
true difference in paradigm.


-- 
Paul E. Johnson                       email: address@hidden
Dept. of Political Science            http://lark.cc.ukans.edu/~pauljohn
University of Kansas                  Office: (785) 864-9086
Lawrence, Kansas 66045                FAX: (785) 864-5700


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