It’s been several weeks since my last posting examining. Over that time, I’ve been working towards the completion of a project that has taken a significant chunk of my time and forced me to think about the use of ABM in the study of international relations. In doing so, I’ve begun to explore the philosophy of science and the extent to which theories of international relations are really amenable to empirical testing.
Continue Reading→Tag: Theory
IIASA Workshop on Systemic Risk
I’ve just participated in a two day workshop in Vienna hosted by the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) called Security in the age of Systemic Risk: Tactics and Options for Dealing with Femtorisks and Beyond. This intimidating title masked the openness and interdisciplinary character of the workshop, which brought together a variety of scholars and practitioners working in the areas of complexity science, risk analysis, decision sciences, mathematics, and international relations, continuing the conceptual and community development that started in 2008 at the Santa Fe Institute looking at complexity and international relations.
Continue Reading→Early Observations from ISA 2011
After two days at the International Studies Association Annual Conference (ISA) in Montreal, several interesting themes have emerged. Rather than mention panel by panel what I’ve seen, I figured I’d summarize my general impressions and provide some highlights at the mid-point of the conference. I’ll caveat everything by noting that the conference is a huge gathering and any attendee can only see a small portion of the total offerings. So, my observations are necessarily constrained by my choices of panels and side-discussions – I could easily have missed something.
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