I build a comprehensive, precise and realistic model for social institutions - like: Bundestag, the city council of Munich, Telecom, Stadtsparkasse München or the garage next door.
In the dominant view, institutions are economic systems. In this account, tasks, roles, games, outcomes and equilibrium points are used as basic notions. In my approach institutions essentially are power hierarchies. An institution is modelled here as a complex and dynamic pattern of power relations which are stabilized by internal representations.
Some domains of investigation are: criteria of identity, rotation or change of the top group, norms, joint attitudes, computer simulation (see also Munich Simulation Group www.munich-simulation-group.org).
Some papers:
Balzer, W. 1990. A Basic Model for Social Institutions, Journal of Mathematical Sociology 16, 1-29.
Balzer, W. 1992. Kriterien für Entstehung und Wandel sozialer Institutionen. In: Melville, G. (ed.), Institutionen und Geschichte, Köln-Weimar-Wien, 73-95.
Balzer, W. 1992. A Model of Power in Small Groups. In: H. Westmeyer (ed.), The Structuralist Program in Psychology, Seattle etc., Hogrefe and Huber, 191-210.
Balzer, W. 1992. Game Theory and Power Theory: A Critical Comparison. In: T.Wartenberg (ed.), Rethinking Power, Albany, 56-78.
Balzer, W. 1993. Soziale Institutionen, de Gruyter, Berlin.
Balzer, W. 1994. Exchange versus Influence: A Case of Idealization. In: B.Hamminga and N.B.de Marchi (eds.), Idealization VI: Idealization in Economics, Poznan Studies 38, Amsterdam: Rodopi, 189-203.
Balzer, W. 1996. A Theory of Binary Crises, in: Huber, R. K. and Avenhaus, R.(eds.) Models of Security Policy in the Post-Cold War Era, Nomos Verlag, Baden-Baden, 233 - 52.
Balzer, W. and Tuomela, W. 1997. The Structure and Verification of Plan-Based Joint Intentions, International Journal of Cooperative Information Systems 6, 3-26.
Balzer, W. and Tuomela, R. 1997. A Fixed Point Approach to Collective Attitudes. In: Holmström-Hintikka, G. and Tuomela, R. (eds.).Contemporary Action Theory Vol II, Dordrecht: Kluwer, 115-42.
Balzer, W. and Tuomela, R. 2001. Social Institutions, Norms and Practices. In: Conte, R. and Dellarocas, C. (eds.). Social Order in Multiagent Systems, Kluwer, Boston, 161-80.
Balzer, W. 2002. Searle on Social Institutions: A Critique, Dialectica 56, 195-211.
Balzer, W. and Tuomela, R. 2003. Collective Intentions and the Maintenance of Social Practices, Automomous AGents and Multi Agent Systems 6, 7 - 33.
Balzer, W., Brendel, K. R. Brendel and Hofmann, S. 2008. K&uunml;nstliche Gesellschaften, Facta Philosophica 10, 3 -24.
Horster, N. 1997. Principles of Exchange and Power, Peter Lang,Frankfurt/Main.
Sander, J. 1988. Eine strukturalistische Rekonstruktion der Wartenbergschen Machttheorie. MA-Thesis.
Some further papers about crises.
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