This presentation is part of the Brown Bag Series sponsored by the International Affairs Graduate Organization.

Abstract:
In this presentation, Peter Brecke will describe how to translate from a theory of a social process that exists within a mind to a computer program that implements the process described by the theory. It does this using as an example a theory of social movement formation. This social movement formation theory is created by integrating three lower-level theories:
- Relative deprivation theory
- Network threshold theory
- Instigator theory

The integration of the theories will be described and then a model created, which contains the variables and relationships described by the social movement formation theory. Then, algorithms that execute the processes of the theory using the variables and relationships in the model will be presented.