During the past decade, social mechanisms and mechanism-based explanations have
received considerable attention in the social sciences as well as in the philosophy of …

This article looks at 20 years of applications of agent‐based models (ABMs) in sociology
and, in particular, their explanatory achievements and methodological insights. These …

Abstract In 1997, Robert Axelrod wondered in a highly influential paper" If people tend to
become more alike in their beliefs, attitudes, and behavior when they interact, why do not all …

Popular accounts of “lifestyle politics” and “culture wars” suggest that political and
ideological divisions extend also to leisure activities, consumption, aesthetic taste, and …

Agent-based modeling is a long-standing but underused method that allows researchers to
simulate artificial worlds for hypothesis testing and theory building. Agent-based models …

A disaster's response and recovery phases can be characterized by the breadth of activities,
complex interrelationships of multiple involved agencies, and uncertain outcomes. Proper …

An important puzzle in social network research is to explain how macro-level structures
emerge from micro-level network processes. Explaining the emergence and stability of …

While men have always received more education than women in the past, this gender
imbalance in education has turned around in large parts of the world. In many countries …

Using Coleman's well-known scheme as an anchor, we review key features of explanations
of social phenomena that employ micro-macro models. Some antecedents of micro-macro …

In reaction to the criticisms to which analytical sociology has been subject with increasing
frequency, the article attempts an overall assessment of this research program by …