GSADI promotes the use of innovative theories and methods in Analytical Sociology. Our main research interest is in building formal models of social mechanisms to explain the complex interaction of social norms, strategic rationality and institutional design.

To this effect GSADI researchers employ a variety of innovative methodologies and techniques, including laboratory experiments (inspired by recent advances in behavioural social science) and agent-based social simulation. At GSADI these models and techniques are applied to a variety of research topics covering several disciplines within the social sciences. Building on recent developments in the theory of collective action, GSADI contributors examine the conditions under which institutional design favours cooperation strategies, motivations for norm compliance, and the achievement of public goods. GSADI also conducts research in examining the effect of conditional and universal social benefits on labour incentives, the role of dispositions for norm compliance, and the practical contribution of altruism and reciprocity to the distributive principles underlying the welfare state.

GSADI also aims to foster theoretical, normative and epistemological research oriented towards the consolidation of sociology as a scientific discipline.