Micro-Macro Links and Microfoundations in Sociology

Abstract

Using Coleman's well-known scheme as an anchor, we review key features of explanations of social phenomena that employ micro-macro models. Some antecedents of micro-macro models and of Coleman's scheme as well as some paradigmatic examples of micro-macro links are sketched. We then discuss micro-level assumptions in micro-macro explanations and the robustness of macro-level implications to variations in micro-level assumptions. We conclude with an overview of some recent developments in micro-macro modeling and of the contributions to the special issue.

Keywords:

• agent-based modeling
• analytical sociology
• microfoundations
• micro-macro link
• rational choice
• simulation

Acknowledgments

We acknowledge financial support for Raub by the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO) under grant 400-09-159 for the project “The Feasibility of Cooperation under Various Sanctioning Institutions” and for Buskens by Utrecht University for the High Potential-program “Dynamics of Cooperation, Networks, and Institutions.”

We are grateful to the contributors for their cooperation in making this special issue possible, including their patience in revising articles and timely submission of revisions. Also, we would like to acknowledge the help of quite some anonymous referees and the support of Phil Bonacich, the JMS editor.

Notes

¹There are also well-known examples of micro-macro models with corporate actors (Coleman, 1990, Parts III and IV) on the micro-level.

²Thus, such explanations follow the minimal program of sociology that has been set forth already by Durkheim (1895/1982) in his Rules of Sociological Method.

³Note the similarity with Coleman's earlier arguments for “synthetic theories” in his Introduction to Mathematical Sociology (1964, p. 34ff; see also p. 516ff). In fact, synthetic theories can be conceived as transformation rules in micro-macro models: “it is characteristic of many of these theories that they begin with postulates on the individual level and end with deductions on the group level” (Coleman, 1964, p. 41).

⁴Our example of the PD indicates that bridge-assumptions characterizing the interdependency between the actors as well as the transformation rule linking individual behavior with macro-outcomes such as Pareto efficiency or, respectively, Pareto suboptimality are implicit in the normal form of the game. A more elaborate description of a game that likewise comprises bridge assumptions and transformation rules implicitly is the tree-like extensive form.

⁵As outlined in Hegselmann and Flache (1998), Schelling's models of segregation can be seen as a “classic” of agent-based modeling.