Mechanisms of cooperation in social and economic life
A research line Raub has pursued over many years concerns the study of cooperation problems (social dilemmas, collective action problems). This research line aims at specifying conditions facilitating cooperation. Topics include:

• effects of repeated interactions between the same actors;
• effects of networks of relations;
• effects of (voluntary) commitments;
• endogenizing conditions for cooperation – when do actors themselves ‘invest’ in establishing repeated interactions with partners, in building up networks of relations, and in incurring costly commitments?

These topics are studied for a range of contexts, including social and economic exchange as well as experimental games such as (variants of) Trust Games and Prisoner’s Dilemmas.

Research includes theoretical and empirical work:

• Theory formation often, but not exclusively, involves choice-based models such as applications of rational choice models and more specifically applications of game-theoretic models.
• Empirical work employs alternative designs, including surveys, experiments, and vignette studies, often aiming at repeated tests of the same hypotheses with multiple studies based on complementary designs.
• Much of this work aims at closely linking formal theoretical models and quantitative empirical research in sociology.

Structural individualism and explanatory sociology
Raub’s work has contributed to developing and establishing ‘structural individualism’ and ‘explanatory sociology’ as mainstream research programs in the discipline.

Rigorous sociology
More recently, Raub has contributed to developing an integrative perspective on the common core of different research programs and developments in sociology that “reflects ‘unity in diversity’: while addressing different research problems and topics, and thus covering different research fields, these research programs and developments share guidelines, including basic methodological standards, for theory construction and empirical research in sociology.” (Raub, De Graaf & Gërxhani (2022) Rigorous Sociology, in Gërxhani, De Graaf & Raub (eds.) Handbook of Sociological Science: Contributions to Rigorous Sociology, p. 3)

Other research

• Over the years, Raub has repeatedly worked and published on various topics in philosophy of science and more specifically philosophy of social science.
• More recently, he has done some empirical work on neuroscience applications in sociology, using experimental designs that allow for testing predictions on the interplay of social macro-conditions and testosterone levels on behavior in social interactions. 

References
See ‘Publications’ for further information.

• Overview of work up to 2017: Raub, W. (2017) Rational Models. Utrecht: Utrecht University. Download (pdf).
• After 2017: see references to recent and forthcoming work under ‘Publications’.
• Work on structural individualism and explanatory sociology: see the references in the respective section under ‘Publications’.
• See curriculum vitae for a complete list of publications.

(Updated August 13, 2024)