Modeling the Co-Evolution of States and Nations

In Proceedings of the Workshop on Simulation of Social Agents: Architectures and Institutions, eds. David Sallach and Thomas Wolsko. Lemont, IL: Argonne National Laboratory, 175–84.
It can be hypothesized that wherever states manage to assimilate their peripheries prior to nationalism, nationalist transformations proceed comparatively peacefully. In cases where the cultural penetration is weak, however, the political and cultural maps clash, thus producing tensions that drive national secession, unification, and irredentism. To trace these processes, I propose an agent‐based model that embeds nationalist mobilization in a dynamic state system. My preliminary findings confirm the main hypothesis: conflict was found to vary negatively with state‐framed cultural centralization. Yet some of the high‐assimilation cases feature extreme levels of conflict due to nationalist unification’s undermining effect on the balance of power.
DOI:
Cederman, Lars-Erik. 2001. “Modeling the Co-Evolution of States and Nations.” In Proceedings of the Workshop on Simulation of Social Agents: Architectures and Institutions, eds. David Sallach and Thomas Wolsko. Lemont, IL: Argonne National Laboratory, 175–84.
@inbook{modeling-states-nations,
   Author = {Cederman, Lars-Erik},
   title = {Modeling the Co-Evolution of States and Nations},
   booktitle = {Proceedings of the Workshop on Simulation of Social Agents: Architectures and Institutions},
   editor = {Sallach, David and Wolsko, Thomas},
   isbn = {0967916828},
   year = {2001},
   pages = {175--184},
   address = {Lemont, IL},
   publisher = {Argonne National Laboratory},
   abstract = {It can be hypothesized that wherever states manage to assimilate their peripheries prior to nationalism, nationalist transformations proceed comparatively peacefully. In cases where the cultural penetration is weak, however, the political and cultural maps clash, thus producing tensions that drive national secession, unification, and irredentism. To trace these processes, I propose an agent-based model that embeds nationalist mobilization in a dynamic state system. My preliminary findings confirm the main hypothesis: conflict was found to vary negatively with state-framed cultural centralization. Yet some of the high-assimilation cases feature extreme levels of conflict due to nationalist unification's undermining effect on the balance of power. },
   doi = {},
   url = {http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.196.7772&rep=rep1&type=pdf},
   status = {personal}
}