Emergent Actors in World Politics: How States and Nations Develop and DissolvePrinceton University Press, 2020 M09 1 - 290 pages The disappearance and formation of states and nations after the end of the Cold War have proved puzzling to both theorists and policymakers. Lars-Erik Cederman argues that this lack of conceptual preparation stems from two tendencies in conventional theorizing. First, the dominant focus on cohesive nation-states as the only actors of world politics obscures crucial differences between the state and the nation. Second, traditional theory usually treats these units as fixed. Cederman offers a fresh way of analyzing world politics: complex adaptive systems modeling. He provides a new series of models--not ones that rely on rational-choice, but rather computerized thought-experiments--that separate the state from the nation and incorporate these as emergent rather than preconceived actors. This theory of the emergent actor shifts attention away from the exclusively behavioral focus of conventional international relations theory toward a truly dynamic perspective that treats the actors of world politics as dependent rather than independent variables. |
From inside the book
Results 1-5 of 89
... Chapter 1. Introduction Chapter 2. Modeling Actors in World Politics Introduction Defining the State and the Nation From Reification to Emergence An Overview of the Literature Why Models Are Needed Why Current Models Will Not Do the ...
... Chapter 7. Nationalist Mobilization Introduction Modeling Political Mobilization Modeling Collective Action Historical Illustrations Conclusion Appendix Chapter 8. Nationalist Coordination Introduction An Ecological Model of Nationality ...
... chapter 4 and chapter 8, which previously appeared as “Emergent Polarity: Analyzing State-Formation and Power Policies,” International Studies Quarterly 38 (1994): 501–33 and “Competing Identities: An Ecological Model of Nationality ...
... chapter 4). Reification refers to the tendency to treat social entities as if they were natural objects (see chap. 2). * It is important not to confuse the concepts of state and nation. The state is a formal institution that possesses ...
... Second, conventional modeling frameworks rest on methodological individualism, a principle that usually entails a purely materialistic and self-interested approach to human agency. Yet nationalism is a 6 C H A P T E R 1.
Contents
14 | |
Toward Richer Models | 37 |
Emergent Polarity | 72 |
Extending the Emergent Polarity Model | 109 |
13b The sample system at time 1634 | 132 |
Modeling Nationalism | 136 |
Nationalist Mobilization | 151 |
Nationalist Coordination | 184 |
types | 201 |
Conclusions for Theory and Policy | 213 |
Bibliography | 233 |
Index | 255 |