Papers of Current Interest

General event coding issues

Bond, Bond, Oh, Jenkins, and Taylor (2003). Integrated Data for Events Analysis (IDEA): An Event Typology for Automated Events Data Development

Analyzing International Event Data (2001)
Chapter One: International Event Data
Philip A. Schrodt, Deborah J. Gerner

Event Data in Foreign Policy Analysis
Philip A. Schrodt October, 1993, Prepared for Laura Neack, Patrick J. Haney and Jeanne A.K. Hey , eds. Foreign Policy Analysis: Continuity and Change in Its Second Generation (New York: Prentice Hall, forthcoming)

Measuring the Intensity of Intranational Political Events Data: Two Interval-like Scales
STEPHEN M. SHELLMAN, Department of Political Science, Florida State University, Tallahassee, Florida, USA

Monitoring conflict using automated coding of newswire reports: a comparison of five geographical regions

event structure analysis
# D. Heise, 1988. Computer analysis of cultural structures. Social Science Computer Review, 6: 183-196.
# D. Heise, 1989. Modeling event structures. Journal of Mathematical Sociology, 14: 139-169.

Griffin, L. (1993). Narrative, event-structure analysis, and causal interpretation in historical sociology. American Journal of Sociology , 98: 1094-1133 (available through jstor)

Conflict Analysis

The Scientific Study of International Conflict Processes: Postcards at the Edge of the Millennia, NSF Monograph. Monty G. Marshall, 1998

Monitoring conflict using automated coding of newswire reports: a comparison of five geographical regions

Destabilization thorugh lens of Cybernetics and Complexity

Lindenfeld, D. (1999) Causality, Chaos Theory and the End of the Weimar Republic, History and Theory, 38, 1999, pp. 281-299 (available through jstor)

The Impact of Instability on Complex Social and Technical Systems Joel Cutcher-Gershenfeld and Eric Rebentisch1

Authoritarian Breakdown: Empirical Test of a Game Theoretic Argument
Barbara Geddes
Social Dynamics and Emergence of Order: Building Theory of Field in Economics
Yuri Yegorov. First draft: 23 June 2002/ This draft: 25 January 2003
Since the field of mathematical modeling of social interactions is only emerging, it makes sense to classify potential models along several dimensions. The provision of such general classification is based on models existing in natural sciences, especially in physics. It can serve as a guideline for mathematical formalization of different social phenomena. Later some models described in literature on social interactions can be classified

Modelling social systems as complex: Towards a social simulation meta-model

There is growing interest in extending complex systems approaches to the social sciences. This is apparent in the increasingly widespread literature and journals that deal with the topic and is being facilitated by adoption of multi-agent simulation in research. Much of this research uses simple agents to explore limited aspects of social behaviour. Incorporation of higher order capabilities such as cognition into agents has proven problematic. Influenced by AI approaches, where cognitive capability has been sought, it has commonly been attempted based on a 'representational' theory of cognition. This has proven computationally expensive and difficult to implement. There would be some benefit also in the development of a framework for social simulation research which provides a consistent set of assumptions applicable in different fields and which can be scaled to apply to simple and more complex simulation tasks. This paper sets out, as a basis for discussion, a meta-model incorporating an 'enactive' model of cognition drawing on both complex system insights and the theory of autopoiesis. It is intended to provide an ontology that avoids some of the limitation of more traditional approaches and at the same time providing a basis for simulation in a wide range of fields and pursuant of a wider range of human behaviours.

Other

Logical Propositions on Free Expression, Regulation, Technology, and Privacy
Panel Presentation to Global Knowledge II Action Summit
Gus Hosein

"Another technology that circumvents access restrictions is the Freedom Network. This application and associated network provides you with secured connections with the Internet (encrypted) so that your ISP can not see where it is that you are going on the Internet -- your ISP only knows that you using the Freedom Network. Meanwhile, the Freedom Network also provides you with pseudonymity when you are viewing web sites -- these web sites can not retrace through their logs back to your computer; they do not need to know your identity, and Freedom ensures that they do not. Yes, such technologies will provide challenges to the FBI and similar institutions in their intelligence procedures, but at the same time, these technologies will provide those within Burma with the ability to communicate with the outside world, being able to circumvent the Burmese regulations in the same way that these technologies also circumvent Australian regulations. The Burmese, nor the Australians, need not be concerned with the infrastructure of surveillance once they are using Freedom."