Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: As the scientific study of macro-social phenomena, IR is now at pains to capture and map complex causal mechanisms in these ‘big, slow-moving, and invisible processes’. Complexity Theory (CT), the scientific study of organization, change and evolution in

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: The authors seek to examine social identity and fundamentalism through a multilevel survey which presents respondents with otherwise discordant images and subsequently uses their responses to those images to gauge their levels of social identity.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: It is acknowledged that several processes in world politics are inherently complex. Therefore, analytic tools from complexity science can provide a better understanding of those processes, in particular of collective phenomena emerging from the nonlinear social interactions of autonomous individuals. The purpose of this paper is to discuss some ontological and epistemological implications of complexity science to the discipline of International Relations. I argue that complexity science is not antagonistic to a critical theoretical stance, for it rejects reductionist and determinist views of science. Besides, I argue that a scientific treatment of complexity which includes formal mathematical models and computer simulations is consistent with a constructivist approach. I illustrate my argument by discussing how agent-based models can be used to study the evolution and spread of global norms. In this manner, I show how complex adaptive systems may contribute to constructivist studies of norms, suggesting valuable new approaches of research.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: This paper shows that Michael Walzer's theory of complex equality is simpler than it claims to be. The distribution of many goods in Walzer's theory is determined by an unacknowledged principle of equal outcomes: the equalization of communal burdens. But this metric suffers from all of the defects of simple equality which Walzer himself identifies. His attempt to save distributive egalitarianism therefore fails. Instead, I argue that a modified utilitarian principle of minimizing involuntary deprivation would rectify all of the distributive injustices Walzer identifies, and it would do so without strapping us into the Procrustean bed of strictly egalitarian principles.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: To ensure a democracy, citizens must participate. Yet we know little about who participates in different fashions, and other than providing crosstabs of social-economic data and demographic factors we are unable to do any more than describe what has already happened. By incorporating the concept of external efficacy of participation we should be able to develop testable hypotheses about participative experiences and how long term attitudes toward participation may be influenced by those attitudes.