Professor Peter Hedström


		Peter Hedström PhD Harvard (1987) Dean, School of Social Sciences Professor of Sociology	School of Social Sciences Singapore Management University 90 Stamford Road, Level 4 Singapore 178903

Research Interests

My area of specialization is analytical sociology. I have a special interest in the analysis of complex social networks, particularly analyses seeking to explain how the structure of the networks in which individuals are embedded influence the collective outcomes the individuals bring about. Currently I am studying contagious suicides (w. Monica Nordvik and Ka-Yuet Liu), the evolution of inter-organizational networks (w. Francois Collet), network effects on unemployment durations (w. Yvonne Åberg), and the dynamics of kinship networks (w. Yvonne Åberg and Nicholas Harrigan). I am also involved in developing Stata software for network analysis and agent-based modelling (w. Yvonne Åberg, Thomas Grund, Nicholas Harrigan, and Lorien Jasny). Philosophy of the social sciences, particularly theories of explanation, is another long-standing interest of mine.

Together with Peter Bearman at Columbia University I am editing The Oxford Handbook of Analytical Sociology which will be published by Oxford University Press in early 2009.

Selected Books

Anatomia del Sociale: Sui principi della sociologia analitica. Bruno Mondadori, 2006.

Dissecting the Social: On the Principles of Analytical Sociology. Cambridge University Press, 2005.

Kvantitativa Metoder: Grundläggande analysmetoder for samhälls-och beteendevetare. [Quantitative Methods for Social and Behavioural Scientists]. Studentlitteratur, 2003 (with Christofer Edling).

Social Mechanisms: An Analytical Approach to Social Theory. Cambridge University Press, 1998 (with Richard Swedberg).

Selected Articles and Book Chapters

Studying mechanisms to strengthen causal inferences in quantitative research. Forthcoming in J. M. Box-Steffensmeier, H. E. Brady and D. Collier (eds.) The Oxford Handbook of Political Methodology. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Rational choice and sociology (with Charlotta Stern). Pp. 872-877 in S.N. Durlauf and L.E. Blume (eds.) The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics. Second Edition. Palgrave Macmillan, 2008.

Explaining the growth patterns of social movements. Pp. 111-26 in J. Elster et. al. (eds.) Understanding Choice, Explaining Behaviour. Oslo: Oslo University Press.

Meso-level networks and the diffusion of social movements (with Rickard Sandell and Charlotta Stern). American Journal of Sociology 106(1): 145-172.

Social mechanisms (with Richard Swedberg). Pp. 1-31 in P. Hedström and R. Swedberg (eds.) Social Mechanisms: An Analytical Approach to Social Theory.

Rational imitation. Pp. 306-327 in P. Hedström and R. Swedberg (eds.) Social Mechanisms: An Analytical Approach to Social Theory.

Popper's situational analysis and contemporary sociology (with Richard Swedberg and Lars Udehn). Philosophy of the Social Sciences 28(3): 339-364.

Contagious collectivities: On the spatial diffusion of Swedish trade unions, 1890-1940. American Journal of Sociology 99(5): 1157-1179.

Organizational differentiation and earnings dispersion. American Journal of Sociology 97 (1): 96-113.

Organizational vacancy chains and the attainment process. Journal of Mathematical Sociology 17 (1): 63-76.

Working Papers and Work in Progress

Social interactions and unemployment (with Yvonne Åberg and Ann-Sofie Kolm).

Analytical sociology in Tocqueville's Democracy in America (with Christofer Edling).

"Agents and networks: On agent-based modelling using Stata" (with Lorien Jasny and Yvonne Åberg).

"Social mechanisms" (w. Petri Ylikoski). To be published in Annual Review of Sociology.

"Analytical sociology" (w. Petri Ylikoski). To be published in The SAGE Handbook of the Philosophy of the Social Sciences, edited by Ian Jarvie and Jesús Zamora-Bonilla.

An Introduction to Agent-Based Modeling Using Stata (w. Yvonne Åberg and Thomas Grund). To be published by Stata Press.

Links

School of Social Sciences, SMU

Singapore Management University

The European Academy of Sociology

The International Institute of Sociology

The Swedish Collegium for Advanced Study

Groupe d'Etude des Méthodes de l'Analyse Sociologique à l'Université de Paris-Sorbonne (Paris IV)

Secretary

Mona Ng. Telephone: +(65) 6828 1928