Emergent Actors in World Politics: How States and Nations Develop and DissolvePrinceton University Press, 1997 M06 12 - 258 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. |
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Contents
Introduction | 3 |
Modeling Actors in World Politics | 14 |
Defining the State and the Nation | 16 |
From Reification to Emergence | 19 |
An Overview of the Literature | 23 |
Why Models Are Needed | 29 |
Why Current Models Will Not Do the Trick | 32 |
Conclusion | 36 |
An Example of Geopolitical Overexrension | 126 |
Modeling Nationalism | 136 |
A Taxonomy of Nations and States | 138 |
Three Types of Nationalism | 141 |
Nationalist Mobilization and Coordination | 146 |
Nationalist Mobilization | 151 |
Modeling Political Mobiilization | 152 |
Modeling Collective Action | 163 |
Toward Richer Models | 37 |
The Problem of Historical Contingency | 38 |
The Problem of Methodological Individualism and Materialism | 44 |
The Complex Adaptive Systems Approach | 49 |
An Introduction to the Models | 69 |
Emergent Polarity | 72 |
Power Politics and Emergent Polarity | 74 |
A Nontechnical Overview | 79 |
Technical Specification | 81 |
Hegemonic Takeoff | 92 |
Regional Balancing | 98 |
Conclusion | 104 |
Extending the Emergent Polarity Model | 109 |
Strategic Adaptation | 112 |
Proportional Resource Allocation | 117 |
TwoLevel Action | 121 |
Historical Illustrations | 170 |
Conclusion | 174 |
Appendix | 177 |
Nationalist Coordination | 184 |
An Ecological Model of Nationality Formation | 187 |
Technical Specification | 191 |
Simulation Results | 197 |
Nationalist Coordination and the Formation of Yugoslavia | 201 |
Conclusion | 210 |
Conclusions for Theory and Policy | 213 |
Closing the Metatheoretical Gap | 219 |
Consequences for Policy | 222 |
233 | |
255 | |