Mark Abdollahian

Politics and Power

P in PMESII stands for Political. Perhaps P was placed first merely to make the acronym easier to pronounce. However, more likely P’s position of prominence was intended to signify its relative importance in international affairs.

At the Frontier of Practical Political Economy: Operationalizing an Agent-Based Stakeholder Model in the World Bank's East Asia and Pacific Region

Reform programs sometimes falter because they are politically infeasible. Policy change inevitably creates winners and losers, so those with vested interests strike bargains to determine how far and how quickly reform should advance. Understanding these micro political dynamics of reform can mean the difference between a successful intervention that gains political traction and a well-intentioned gambit that falls short of achieving its developmental objectives. Donors like the World Bank have been searching for ways to take these political factors more fully into account as they design programs to support country reforms. This initiative sought to introduce a rigorous and operationally usable political analysis tool that could be systematically integrated into the World Banks country programming cycle. The East Asia and Pacific region carried out a multi-country pilot of the Agent-Based Stakeholder Model. This innovative analytical approach entails a quantitative simulation of the complex bargaining dynamics surrounding reform. The model anticipates stakeholder coalition formation and gauges the political feasibility of alternative proposed interventions. This paper provides a review of the Agent-Based Stakeholder Model pilot experience, exploring what sets this model apart from more traditional approaches, how it works, and how it fits into the Banks operational cycle at various stages. An overview of the Mongolia, Philippines, and Timor-Leste country cases is followed by an examination of policy-related insights and lessons learned. Finally, the paper builds on this East Asian pilot experience, offering ideas on a potential way forward for organizations like the World Bank to deepen and extend their political analysis capabilities. The paper argues that the Agent-Based Stakeholder Model, utilized thoughtfully, offers a powerful addition to the practical political economy toolkit.

Human Development Dynamics: An Agent Based Simulation of Macro Social Systems and Individual Heterogeneous Evolutionary Games

PurposeIn the context of modernization and development, a complex adaptive systems framework can help address the coupling of macro social constraint and opportunity with individual agency. Combining system dynamics and agent based modeling, we formalize a simulation approach of the Human Development (HD) perspective to explore the interactive effects of economics, culture, society and politics across multiple human scales.MethodsBased on a system of asymmetric, coupled nonlinear equations, we first capture the core qualitative logic of HD theory, empirically validated from World Values Survey (WVS) data. Using a simple evolutionary game approach, second we fuse endogenously derived individual socio-economic attribute changes with Prisoner’s Dilemma in an agent based model of the interactive political-cultural effects of heterogeneous, spatial intra-societal economic transactions. We then explore a new human development dynamics (HDD) model behavior via quasi-global simulation methods to identify paths and pitfalls towards economic development, cultural plasticity, social and political change behavior.ResultsOur preliminary results suggest strong nonlinear path dependence and complexity in three areas: adaptive development processes, co-evolutionary societal transactions and near equilibrium development trajectories, with significant implications for anticipating and managing positive development outcomes. Strong local epistatic interactions characterized by adaptive co-evolution, shape higher order global conditions and ultimately societal outcomes.ConclusionsTechno-social simulations such as this can provide scholars and policymakers alike insights into the nonlinear, complex adaptive effects of societal co-evolution. We believe complex adaptive or evolutionary systems approaches are necessary to understand both near and potentially catastrophic, far-from-equilibrium behavior and societal outcomes across all human scales of modernization.

In Search of Structure: The Nonlinear Dynamics of Power Transitions

Power Transitions (PT) anticipates interstate conflict or cooperation by examining dynamic changes in the distribution of power across the international system, as well as each nations (or politically “relevant” nations) satisfaction with the current international status quo. Using a system of symmetric, coupled nonlinear differential equations, we formalize and test a dynamic PT model to identify to what extent and degree policy makers can maintain stability in rival dyads, such as the US-China case currently. Our formalized dynamic PT model explores some of the structural conditions of how conflict or cooperation affects growth and transition from the PT literature. These formal results are consistent both with theoretical expectations and empirical results. Our results not only suggest specific, strategic policy prescriptions for dyads in hopes of avoiding war, but more importantly highlight the nonlinear and non-monotonic effects of foreign policy actions.

Human Development Dynamics: An Agent Based Simulation of Adaptive Heterogeneous Games and Social Systems

In the context of modernization and development, the complex adaptive systems framework can help address the coupling of macro social constraint and opportunity with individual agency. Combining system dynamics and agent based modeling, we formalize the Human Development (HD) perspective with a system of asymmetric, coupled nonlinear equations empirically validated from World Values Survey (WVS) data, capturing the core qualitative logic of HD theory. Using a simple evolutionary game approach, we fuse endogenously derived individual socio-economic attribute changes with Prisoner’s Dilemma spatial intra-societal economic transactions. We then explore a new human development dynamics (HDD) model behavior via quasi-global simulation methods to explore economic development, cultural plasticity, social and political change.

Human Development Dynamics: Network Emergence in an Agent Based Simulation of Adaptive Heterogeneous Games and Social Systems

In the context of political modernization and economic development, the complex adaptive systems framework can help address the coupling of macro social constraint and opportunity with individual agency. Using a simple evolutionary game approach, we fuse endogenously derived socio-economic system dynamics from Human Development (HD) Theory with Prisoner’s Dilemma spatial intra-societal economic transactions. We then explore a new human development dynamics (HDD) model behavior via quasi-global simulation methods to explore technological progression on economic development, cultural plasticity, social and political change. Using network analysis, we then investigate the impact of technology proliferation on communications ease and the resulting compression of social space on individual wealth and political preference formation. As economic and social capital is created, past transaction histories tend to reinforce future success, and networks emerge and solidify at different rates depending on technology. Increasing social connectivity in small populations has an immediate and positive impact on wealth creation, yet those effects become negative as technology proliferates and population size increases. This suggests not only diminishing marginal returns to increasing communications’ payoffs to individuals but moreover crowding out effects. We believe complex adaptive or evolutionary systems approaches are necessary to understand both near and potentially catastrophic, far-from-equilibrium behavior and societal outcomes across all human scales of modernization.

Negotiating peace in Kosovo

We systematically analyze and forecast key developments before and during the Kosovo Crisis. Prior to the air campaign, we anticipated the breakdown of negotiations at Rambouillet and the subsequent initiation of hostilities. Without Russia as a mediator, we predicted that Milosevic would engage in military activity and strengthen his domestic control. As the war was being waged, we took a second look at settlement opportunities. Russia was identified as the key mediator needed to reach a settlement We show that a European‐led settlement offered promising prospects for peace. Finally, we demonstrate that the settlement achieved after the air war was not much different than the settlement that could have been achieved at Rambouillet The settlement on Kosovo offers only short‐term stability. To gain long‐term stability, the Serbians must either agree to the existing ethnic makeup in Kosovo or allow it to be partitioned. Otherwise, conflict in this region will likely revive.

Social Spatial Heterogeneity and System Entrainment in Modeling Human and Nature Dynamics

In the context of sustainable development, a complex adaptive systems framework can help address the coupling of macro social, environmental and economic constraints and opportunities with individual agency. Using a simple evolutionary game approach, we fuse endogenously derived socio-economic system dynamics from human and nature dynamics (HANDY) theory with Prisoner’s Dilemma, spatial intra-societal economic transactions. We explore the potential of spectral information from the social network adjacency matrices to predict synchronization dynamics and see how behavioral social spatial heterogeneity entrain with wealth, carrying capacity and population.

Negotiating the Peaceful Expansion of the South African Electorate

Contrary to many predictions of instability, the expansion of the South African electorate in 1994 did not result in increases in political violence. The purpose of this article is to examine the relationship between two substantial socipolitical developments: structural property and labor guarantees during the transition process. The authors argue that the interplay of property, labor, and electorate expansion sets the stage for either a peaceful or a conflictual expansion of the electorate. The outcomes of the negotiations between the key political coalitions will ultimately determine if a decrease in the levels and rates of political violence in the polity will result. Thus, to explain changes in the levels and rates of political violence and ultimately the successful expansion to a more inclusive democracy, it is necessary to understand the negotiation dynamics that take place among competing political coalitions in South Africa.

When Feedback Loops Collide: A Complex Adaptive Systems Approach to Modeling Human and Nature Dynamics

In the context of sustainable development, complex adaptive systems frameworks can help address the coupling of macro social, environmental and economic constraint and opportunity with individual agency. Using a simple evolutionary game approach, we fuse endogenously derived socio-economic system dynamics from human and nature dynamics (HANDY) theory with Prisoner’s Dilemma spatial intra-societal economic transactions. We then create a new human and nature dynamics agent based model to explore technological progression on population dynamics, economic development, social inequality and use of resources. We investigate the impact of technology proliferation on communications ease and the resulting compression of social space on individual wealth and societal sustainability. Our initial result shows complex adaptive or evolutionary systems approaches are necessary to understand both near and potentially catastrophic, far-from-equilibrium behavior and societal outcomes across all scales of human behavior and dynamics.