Abstract
After an introduction of the theoretical framework and concepts of transition studies, this article gives an overview of how structural change in social systems has been studied from various disciplinary perspectives. This overview first leads to the conclusion that computational and mathematical approaches and their practical form, modeling, up till now, have been almost absent in the research and theorizing of structural change or transitions in social systems. Second, this review of the social science literature suggests numerous theoretical constructs relevant for transition modeling. Relevant concepts include the conceptualization of the micro-to-macro link, the importance of explaining both stability and change, quantitative and qualitative definitions of structural change, the use of dichotomies, synchronic and diachronic reasoning in explaining structural change, definitions of basic patterns of social change, the conceptualization of resistance to change and intentional and normative aspects of social change. This article employs these theoretical concepts to describe and discuss the models presented in this special issue in order to develop an understanding of what exactly entails a computational or mathematical approach to societal transitions.
Highlights
Much of the conceptual language is taken from complexity theories, which have strong connections with exact sciences, computational and mathematical approaches are hard to find in the field of transition studies
We do so by working from small to big social scales, starting with the organizational sciences and ending with sociology and by confronting approaches and concepts of structural change in the social science literature with the concepts from the field of societal transitions described in Sect
Via Castells we find our way back to complexity theory
Summary
Much of the conceptual language is taken from complexity theories, which have strong connections with exact sciences, computational and mathematical approaches are hard to find in the field of transition studies. As a matter of fact, the relevance of formalization significantly increases when phenomena to be studied require collaboration among scientists belonging to different scientific disciplines This is a further reason why computational and mathematical approaches are really necessary for the progress of transition studies. It appears that all methods are allowed and all approaches have their merits and shortcomings This issue alone already covers five methodologically different approaches to societal transitions; agent based modeling, partial differential equations, mathematical sociology, system dynamics and non-linear systems. These theoretical constructs are used to describe, compare and discuss the conceptualization of change in the models presented in this issue and so develop a better understanding of what entails a transition model
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