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Bertrand Roehmer, University of Paris
"Why and how to decompose
historical events into elementary modules?"
Abstract:
The main objective of this talk is to emphasize the
potential interest
of analyzing clusters of events. At first sight,
one might think
that such an approach is quite common. After all,
when I visit
my doctor because I'm feverish and have headache he
may
link these symptoms to a flu and in doing so he
relies on
the observation of a large set of similar cases.
Nevertheless, for
some specific reasons, the cluster of events
approach is less
standard in the social sciences.
A number of examples will be presented in
order to illustrate
how one can identify and use clusters of events.
These
examples include: terrorism, execution of kings,
the use of
symbols such as the Liberty Cap during the American
Revolution,
the revolutions in Iran during the 20th
century.
The focus of this talk is not on the technical
details of the enterprise, but on giving an overview of
the main concepts and applications that arise when
analyzing clusters of events. Thus, the examples
are purposefully taken from a broad set of problems,
ranging from micro- to macrosociology, to convince the
audience that it is worthwhile to address these various
questions from the common framework advanced in this
talk.
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