Work

Modelos basados en agentes: aportes epistemológicos y teóricos para la investigación social

Year: 2015
Type: article
Abstract: Agent-based models (ABM) constitute a new generation of computer based methods that allow the modeling of the structure of a complex system and simulation of its dynamic evolution over time. The use of ABM constitutes a methodological tendency expanding in contemporary social sciences; however, these models remain quite unknown and not frequently taught in the field of sociology. They therefore represent a minor methodological alternative among social researchers. The purpose of this work is to introduce social scientists to the main ideas of the agent-based models as they are articulated with certain theoretical and methodological problems of the social sciences. The first section puts into question the relationship between agent-based models and complex systems in a critical epistemological perspective. Subsequently, the contributions of ABM to social research are analyzed, and in the third section, their application in the framework of a specific discipline, political science, is assessed. Finally, a practical example of a simulation based on agents from the classic work of Thomas Schelling about racial segregation is developed.
Language: Spanish
Open Access status: diamond
OpenAlex ID: W2116558840
FWCI: 0.59
Cites: 110
Cited by: 16
Related to: 10