ECPR

Install the app

Install this application on your home screen for quick and easy access when you’re on the go.

Just tap Share then “Add to Home Screen”

ECPR

Install the app

Install this application on your home screen for quick and easy access when you’re on the go.

Just tap Share then “Add to Home Screen”

Modeling and Simulation as Explanation in Political Science

Elections
Political Methodology
Political Theory
Methods
Thomas Metz
Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg
Thomas Metz
Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg

Abstract

Drawing on the concept of explanation as it is currently used in naturalist political science, I discuss how the idea of a model as a goal-driven representation or "mental image" of a system fits into this paradigm and how it relates to simulation understood as the imitation of one process through another. Using the field of agent-based modeling as an example, I locate the terms modeling and simulation within the regular bathtub-structure of social explanation used in methodological individualism. I then ask what it takes for an agent-based simulation to be regarded as a successful explanation and how the representation of individuals through software agents might enrich our understanding of social phenomena, in particular electoral behavior.