Corinna Elsenbroich

Simulating protection rackets: a case study of the Sicilian Mafia

Protection racketeering groups are powerful, deeply entrenched in multiple societies across the globe, and they harm the societies and economies in which they operate in multiple ways. These reasons make their dynamics important to understand and an objective of both scientific and application-oriented interest. Legal and social norm-based approaches arguably play significant roles in influencing protection racket dynamics. We propose an agent-based simulation model, the Palermo Scenario, to enrich our understanding of these influences and to test the effect of different policies on protection racket dynamics. Our model integrates the legal and the social norm-based approaches and uses a complex normative agent architecture that enables the analysis of both agents’ behaviours and mental normative representations driving behaviour. We demonstrate the usefulness of the model and the benefits of using this complex normative architecture through a case study of the Sicilian Mafia.

Three kinds of normative behaviour: minimal requirements for feedback models

We present an analysis for modelling social norms. In social psychology three different normative behaviours have been identified: obedience, conformity and compliance. We show that this triad is a useful conceptualisation of normative behaviour and that current models only ever deal with conformity and obedience two, neglecting compliance. We argue that this is a result from modelling having so far focussed too much on agent behaviour rather than agent knowledge and that cognitive models of normative behaviour are needed to capture this third and arguably most interesting normative behaviour.

Agent Based Modelling

In this chapter, we describe the main characteristics of agent-based modelling. Agent-based modelling is a computational method that enables researchers to create, analyse, and experiment with models composed of autonomous and heterogeneous agents that interact within an environment, in order to identify the mechanisms that bring about some macroscopic phenomenon of interest.

The Extortion Relationship: A Computational Analysis

Systematic extortion involves a long term parasitic relationship between the criminal and the victim. Game theory analysis has provided insight into the choices of individual hypothetical criminal and victim pairs. In this paper we present an agent-based model so as to extend the analysis to the relationship between extorters and other potential victims. The model is developed in two stages, the first to be closest to game theory, the second one making the decision informed by the social environment of the victim. The agent-based model shows the importance of social aspects for the functioning of extortion rackets.

Internalisation and Social Norms

An important aspect of social norms is their internalization, after which they produce behaviour automatically, circumventing deliberation. Cognitive and emotional models of norm internalization are discussed with a major focus on recent work on cognitive agent architectures that are able to exhibit normative learning.

The Addio Pizzo movement: exploring social change using agent-based modelling

Extortion racketeering is a crime that blights the lives of everyone in societies where it takes hold. Whilst most European countries have some form of extortion racketeering, in most countries it is isolated to some ethnic communities. In Southern Italy and Sicily, extortion racketeering is still a feature of overall society. This paper attempts to look at the phenomenon from the angle of collectives, of resistance building through civic organisations such as Addiopizzo. For this investigation a computational model is presented to analyse the effect of team-reasoning on levels of resistance in systemic extortion rackets. An agent-based model is presented that implements the interaction of different kinds of decision-making of extortion victims with law enforcement deterrence. The results show that established extortion rackets are hard to undermine unless bottom-up civic engagement and law enforcement go hand in hand.

A standing ovation for Nigel: An informal study

This article analyses a series of emails thanking Nigel for his stewardship of JASSS and the characteristics of their authors. It identifies a correlation between two measures of author activity in social simulation research, but no pattern between these activity measures and the email timing. Instead, the sequence suggests a classic standing ovation effect.

Self-organizing dynamical systems

The concept of self-organization in social science is reviewed. In the first two sections, some basic features of self-organizing dynamical systems in general science are presented and the origin of the concept is reconstructed, paying special attention to social science accounts of self-organization. Then, theoretical and methodological considerations regarding the current application of the concept and prospective challenges are examined.

The Environment and Social Norms

The influence of environmental factors on social norms is considered. Using the example of a scarce resource environment, the emergence of a possession norm is explored as is the function of such a norm for society. A criminological model that implements the theory of routine activity is described.

It Takes Two to Tango: We-Intentionality and the Dynamics of Social Norms

Margaret Thatcher’s “There is no such thing as society” is one of the defining statements of her premiership, describing a world in which only individuals exist and each and everyone needs to take responsibility for their own actions. The spirit of individualism also pervades the social sciences, starting with microeconomic theory but further invading other social sciences in the form of rational choice, exchange or game theory. It is futile to ask which came first, the individualisation of society or the victory of individualism in the social sciences. They feed back into each other like most social phenomena.