Cohort: ESLS 38 - From Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (joint supervision)

Topic of the thesis: The Causal Mechanisms Driving Social Cohesion in European Societies: A Data-Driven Agent-Based Modelling Approach

Abstract: European societies have become increasingly ethnically diverse, economically unequal, and politically polarised over the past decades. This growing differentiation has put new strains on societal cohesion as nations show signs of strongly divided citizens, putting their democratic functioning under pressure. Understanding how we can strengthen cohesion in complex societies, making them more resilient, is essential to tackle the societal challenges nations face now and will face in the future. Unfortunately, despite the abundance of research into social cohesion across the social sciences, the causal mechanisms that drive or diminish social cohesion in different societies are not yet fully uncovered.
Social cohesion is found to be a profoundly relational concept. Theories generally focus on either an ideational component (e.g., trust, opinions of solidarity, etc.) or a structural component (e.g., cluster formation in social networks). But, by studying these components individually, researchers miss the role of the social network structure itself on the effects of everyday interactions and relationships. Furthermore, current research does not help us understand how future changes in society (e.g., growing differentiation as a result of climate change) will affect cohesion or what policies societies can implement to remediate decreasing cohesion. These questions are difficult to determine through interviews or questionnaires, as the mechanisms are strongly intertwined, embedded in specific contexts, and give rise to complex dynamics. My research takes a complex systems approach, using agent-based modeling (ABM), to find the effects of the combination of theoretically proposed causal mechanisms on an evolving society's cohesion. Networks based on empirically collected data will be used to simulate social interactions. This is done with the goal to find a stronger theoretical foundation for the findings in empirical research. In turn, findings from my research can emphasize elements of interest for future empirical research on the causal mechanisms toward cohesive and resilient societies.

Research interests: Social cohesion; generalized trust; agent-based modeling.

Graduated from: Universiteit van Amsterdam (BSc/MSc), Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (MSc).

Degrees obtained: BSc Physics and Astronomy; MSc Computational Science 

E-mail address:  This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.