Suchergebnisse

Most of the intriguing social phenomena of our time, such as international terrorism, social inequality, and urban ethnic segregation, are consequences of complex forms of agent interaction that are difficult to observe methodically and experimentally. This book looks at a new research stream that makes use of advanced computer simulation modelling techniques to spotlight agent interaction that allows us to explain the emergence of social patterns. It presents a method to pursue analytical sociology investigations that look at relevant social mechanisms in various empirical situations, such as markets, urban cities, and organisations

L'article analyse quelques monographies fondamentales qui mettent en évidence la pertinence de la simulation multi-agents pour l'analyse sociologique. Ces ouvrages ont été sélectionnés au sein de travaux qui portent sur la coopération, les dynamiques sociales et les normes. Ils montrent l'importance de modéliser les comportements complexes des acteurs et leurs interactions pour comprendre les régularités sociales ainsi que les raisons pour lesquelles la modélisation et l'abstraction sont importantes pour l'analyse sociologique. La modélisation multi-agents peut nous aider à produire des théories des phénomènes sociaux plus cohérentes et vérifiables et nous permet de mieux organiser les théories avant de les tester et en vue de les répliquer. Enfin, dans l'esprit d'une approche collaborative, cet article argumente en faveur du besoin de liens plus étroits entre les approches expérimentales et la sociologie.

Social entrepreneurs are playing a pivotal role in promoting intersector initiatives to address economic and social challenges in regions and local communities. This generates social capital to support an initiative-oriented collaboration framework among participants and across sectors. Such intersectoral initiatives are of paramount importance for the capacity of a region/community to set up innovative solutions to socioeconomic problems from the bottom-up, going beyond the limits of markets and government institutions. This is increasingly happening not only in depressed but also in developed regions and communities, such as Silicon Valley. This article reports on the Joint Venture: Silicon Valley Network, a nonprofit organization launched in 1992 to promote a series of intersectoral initiatives at the edge of the economy, society, and environment in Silicon Valley.

Abstract
Transparency and accountability are keywords in corporate business, politics, and science. As part of the open science movement, many journals have started to adopt forms of open peer review beyond the closed (single- or double-blind) standard model. However, there is contrasting evidence on the impact of these innovations on the quality of peer review. Furthermore, their long-term consequences on scientists' cooperation and competition are difficult to assess empirically. This paper aims to fill this gap by presenting an agent-based model that simulates competition and status dynamics between scholars in an artificial academic system. The results would suggest that if referees are sensitive to competition and status, the transparency achieved by open peer review could backfire on the quality of the process. Although only abstract and hypothetical, our findings suggest the importance of multidimensional values of peer review and the anonymity and confidentiality of the process.

This article examines publication patterns over the last seventy years from the American Sociological Review and American Journal of Sociology, the two most prominent journals in sociology. We reconstructed the gender of all published authors and each author's academic pedigree. Results would suggest that these journals published disproportionally more articles by male authors and their coauthors. These gender inequalities persisted even when considering citations and after controlling for the influence of academic affiliation. It would seem that the potentially positive advantage of working in a prestigious, elite sociology department, in terms of better learning environment and reputational signal, for higher publication opportunities only significantly benefits male authors. While our findings do not mean that these journals have biased internal policies or implicit practices, this publication pattern needs to be considered especially regarding the possibility of their "social closure" and isomorphism.

This article investigates the impact of the second national research assessment (VQR 2004–10), which was performed in 2011 by the Italian National Agency for the Evaluation of Universities and Research Institutes, on publication strategies by sociologists in Italy. We reconstructed all publications from Italian sociologists in Scopus between 2006 and 2015, that is five years before and after the assessment. We also checked academic tenure and promotions during the assessment. Our results showed the potentially distortive effect of institutional signals on publications given that Italian sociologists published more in journals that were considered influential for assessment, some, however, being of doubtful quality. Our findings would suggest that the use of informed peer review and ad hoc journal ranking could stimulate adaptive responses based on strategic journal targeting to ensure publication.

How can sociologists observe a war "in the making"? In issuing an "instant call for papers," the editors of Sociologica suggest three lines of research: the semantics and the symbolic representation of war (of any war, but especially of this war); how political, military, economic, and social options and alternatives enter and exit the realm of the possible in connection with shifts in war semantics; how our understanding of "the day after," that is of the future after the war is over, binds and even determines decisions in the present.