Introduction
Ravi Bhavnani is a Professor in the International Relations & Political Science Department at the Graduate Institute. His research explores the micro-foundations of violent conflict by means of agent-based computational modeling and disaggregated empirical analysis. More specifically, his work examines the endogenous relationships among: (i) the characteristics, beliefs, and interests of relevant actors; (ii) social mechanisms and emergent social structures that shape attitudes, decision-making and behavior; and (iii) patterns of conflict and violence.
Expert
The challenge of mapping outcomes to precipitating factors in systems characterized by non-linear behavior calls for methodological innovation. Agent-based models (ABM) make it possible to represent heterogeneous agents at different scales and exhibiting diverse decision-making rules or heuristics, to simulate learning and adaptive behavior, and specify spatial and social interaction topologies. These are perhaps some of the fundamental reasons why ABM are capable of replicating emergent phenomena commonly exhibited by complex adaptive systems. By using ABM to link theoretical conjectures to concrete empirical evidence, thereby identifying mechanisms and processes that tend to generate specific outcomes, Bhavnani’s work has defined an original program for studying violence at the micro-level.
Fields of expertise: Social change / social transformations