- The crucial issue is no longer "What do we know?" but rather
- "How do we deal with the fact that we don't know enough?"
- Attributed to C. West Churchman
Abstract
A holy grail for military, diplomatic, and intelligence analysis is a valid set of software agent models that act as the desired ethno-political factions so that one can test the effects of alternative courses of action in different countries. This article explains StateSim, a country modeling approach that synthesizes best-of-breed theories from across the social sciences and that has helped numerous organizations over 20 years to study insurgents, gray zone actors, and other societal instabilities. The country modeling literature is summarized (Sect. 1.1) and synthetic inquiry is contrasted with scientific inquiry (Sects. 1.2 and 2). Section 2 also explains many fielded StateSim applications and 100s of past acceptability tests and validity assessments. Section 3 then describes how users now construct and run ‘first pass’ country models within hours due to the StateSim Generator, while Sect. 4 offers two country analyses that illustrate this approach. The conclusions explain lessons learned.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Armstrong JS (2002) Assessing game theory, role playing and unaided judgment. Int J Forecast 18:345–352
Askari G, Gordji ME, Park C (2019) The behavioral model of game theory. Nat Palgrave Commun 5:57
Bénabou R (2013) Groupthink. Rev Econ Stud 80:429–462
Bharathy GK, Silverman BG (2012) Applications of social systems modeling to political and business risk management. In: Jain L, Zhang G, Jie L (eds) Ch. 17 Handbook on decision making intelligence methodologies and applications. Springer, Berlin, pp 331–371
Bharathy G, Silverman B (2013) Holistically evaluating agent based social systems models: a case study. Simul J. https://doi.org/10.1177/0037549712446854
Boschee E, Lautenschlager J, O’Brien S et al (2018) ICEWS weekly event data. Harvard Dataverse. https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/QI2T9A
Burns TR, Roszkowska E, Corte U, Machado N (2017) Sociological game theory: agency, social structures and interaction processes. Optimum 5(89):187–199. https://doi.org/10.15290/ose.2017.05.89.13
Camerer C, Ho T-H (2015) Behavioral game theory experiments and modeling”. In: Aumann RJ, Hart S (eds) Ch. 10 Handbook of game theory with economic applications, vol 4. North-Holland, Amsterdam, pp 517–573
Cape M, Lee H (2019) The athena simulation: modeling the sociocultural landscape. TRADOC G-2, Leavenworth
Center for Systemic Peace (2020) Polity IV project. https://www.systemicpeace.org/polityproject.html
Churchman CW (1972) The design of inquiring systems: basic concepts of systems and organizations. Basic Books, New York
Edmonds B, Moss S (2005) From KISS to KIDS—an ‘anti-simplistic’ modeling approach. In: Davidsson P et al (eds) Multi agent based simulation 2004, vol 3415. Springer, Berlin, pp 130–144
Elsaesser C et al (2015) Computational sociocultural models used for forecasting. In: Egeth J (ed) Ch. 10 in sociocultural behavior seemaking. Mitre Corp, Washington DC
Goldstone J, Bates R, Epstein D et al (2010) A Global model for forecasting political instability. Am J Polit Sci 54:190–208
Gollin D (2014) The Lewis model: a 60-year retrospective. J Econ Perspect 28(3):71–88
Halkia M, Ferri S, Papazoglou M (2020) Conflict Event Modelling: Research Experiment and Event Data Limitations. In Proceedings of AESPEN 2020, vol 11–16. LREC, Marseille, pp 42–48
Hendrickson L, McKelvey B (2002) Foundations of ‘new’ social science. PNAS 99(3):7288–7295
Hermann MG (1999) Assessing leadership style. Social Science Automation Inc, Hilliard, OH
House RJ, Hanges PJ, Javidan M et al (2004) Culture, leadership, and organizations: the GLOBE study of 62 societies. Sage Publications, Thousand Oaks, CA
Inglehart R, Haerpfer C, Moreno A, Welzel C, Kizilova K, Diez-Medrano J, Lagos M, Norris P, Ponarin E, Puranen B et al (eds) (2014) World values survey: all rounds—country-pooled datafile. JD Systems Institute, Madrid
Janis IL, Mann L (1977) Decision making: a psychological analysis of conflict, choice, and commitment. Free Press, Mumbai
Jontz S (2015) Data analytics programs help predict global unrest. AFCEA, Fairfax
Kuhn TS (1970) The structure of scientific revolutions. University of Chicago Press, Chicago
Lindblom CE (1959) The science of “muddling through.” Public Admin Rev 19(2):79–88
NASA/JPL (2011) “Athena” in NASA tech briefs magazine. NASA, Washington DC, p 1
Ortony A, Clore GL, Collins A (1988) The cognitive structure of emotions. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge
Pettersson T, Öberg M (2020) Organized violence, 1989–2019. J Peace Res 57(4):597
Silverman D (2018) What shapes civilian beliefs about violent events? Experimental evidence from Pakistan. J Conflict Resolut 63(6):1460–1487
Silverman BG, Bharathy G (2005) Modeling the personality & cognition of leaders. In: 14th Conference on behavioral representations in modeling and simulation, SISO. http://www.sisostds.org.
Silverman BG, Rees R, Toth J et al (2005) Athena’s prism—a diplomatic strategy role playing simulation for generating ideas and exploring alternatives. In: Proceedings of First International Conference on Intelligence Analysis. Mitre, MacLean, VA
Silverman BG, Bharathy GK, Nye BE (2007) Modeling factions for ‘effects based operations’: part I—leader and follower behaviors. J Comput Math Organ Theory 13(4):379–406
Silverman BG, Bharathy GK, Nye BE (2008) Modeling factions for ‘effects based operations’: part ii—behavioral game theory. J Comput Math Organ Theory 14(2):120–155
Silverman BG, Sun D, Bharathy G, Weyer N (2016) Speeding model creation through reuse: case of the StateSim generator. In: Cohn J, Schatz S (eds) Modeling socio-cultural influences on decision making. CRC Press, Boca Raton, pp 335–360
Silverman BG, Bharathy G, Weyer N (2019) What is a good pattern of life (PoL): guidance for simulations. Simulation 95(8):693
Singer EA (1959) Experience and reflection. University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia
Solow R (1956) A contribution to the theory of economic growth. Q J Econ 70:65–94. https://doi.org/10.2307/1884513
Swedberg R (2001) Sociology and game theory. J Theory Sociol 30(3):301–335
Vogt M, Bormann N, Rüegger S, Cederman L, Hunziker P, Girardin L (2015) Integrating data on ethnicity, geography, and conflict: the ethnic power relations data set family. J Conflict Resolut 59(7):1327–1342
Acknowledgements
The current project is sponsored by DoD/CTTSO, Australian MoD, and British MoD. Past government sponsors of StateSim include: AFOSR, DARPA, DoD/D9, NIH, ONR, PEO-STRI, US AID, and US Gov. Past private sponsors include gifts from Analog Devices Inc, Anheuser-Busch Foundation, Beck Fund, Boeing, GM Foundation, Lockheed, and projects of numerous students and post-docs over the years. Thanks also to several dozen past collaborators (too numerous to name) over the years.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Additional information
Publisher's Note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Silverman, B.G., Silverman, D.M., Bharathy, G. et al. StateSim: lessons learned from 20 years of a country modeling and simulation toolset. Comput Math Organ Theory 27, 231–263 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10588-021-09324-1
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10588-021-09324-1