MASON RebeLand: An Agent-Based Model of Politics, Environment, and Insurgency

Abstract

Social simulation models from computational social science are beginning to provide significant advances in terms of implementing more complex social, human, and natural dynamics that are characteristic of how real world countries operate. The MASON RebeLand model presents three innovations: (1) an explicit polity model with politically complete structure and processes; (2) social and natural model components within an integrated socio-natural system; and (3) generative dynamics where insurgency and the state of the polity (stable, unstable, failing, failed, recovering) occur as emergent phenomena under a range of social and environmental conditions. Earlier agent-based models (ABMs) on similar topics have been useful in covering parts of RebeLand’s scope. Three scenarios are demonstrated, showing stable, unstable, and failing polity conditions. The MASON computational system also permits additional experiments and extensions.

Keywords: conflict modeling, agent-based modeling, social simulation, Eastern Africa, coupled socio-natural systems