Building a Bridge from Qualitative Analysis to a Simulation of the Arab Spring Protests

Dornschneider, S and Edmonds, B ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3903-2507 (2021) Building a Bridge from Qualitative Analysis to a Simulation of the Arab Spring Protests. In: 15th Social Simulation Conference, 23 September 2019 - 27 September 2019, Mainz, Germany.

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Abstract

This paper builds a ‘bridge’ between a qualitative analysis and the design of an agent-based simulation by applying the CSNE framework, which distinguishes between context, scope and narrative elements. Qualitative data were constructed from ethnographic interviews on the Arab Spring in Egypt and Morocco. To identify narrative elements, the data were analysed by coding procedures from grounded theory and a computational analysis. Through a series of conversations and structured questions, the scope and context, which were largely implicit in the data, were specified, and a simulation was produced in a process akin to ‘rapid prototyping’. The aim was to produce the design for a simulation that included the key elements and behaviours identified from the qualitative data and as few other elements as possible. This paper describes this process, the CSNE framework, as well as the simulation that resulted. The lessons learned for such an exercise are reported.