# Peter Abell

Peter Abell (born 1939) is a British social scientist, currently professor emeritus at the London School of Economics where he has founded and directed the "Interdisciplinary Institute of Management". He has been teaching for many years at LSE's Department of Management, managerial economics and strategy group.

## Work

He is known for his contribution to mathematical social science, both quantitative and qualitative. He is the author of several books on methodology and individual participation and co-operation and currently focuses on an approach he coined Bayesian narratives and on network analysis particularly the role of signed structures in group formation and identity change.

## Political activism

During the 1960s Abell was involved in demonstrations organised by the Committee of 100 in Trafalgar Square and in his youth advocated for civil disobedience and nuclear disarmament.

## Selected publications
### Books

* Abell, Peter (1971). Model building in sociology (basic ideas in the human sciences). London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson. OCLC 610200189.
* Abell, Peter, ed. (1975). Organizations as bargaining and influence systems. OCLC 464079399.
* Abell, Peter (1987). The syntax of social life: the theory and method of comparative narratives. Oxford Oxfordshire New York: Clarendon Press. ISBN 9780198272717.
* Abell, Peter (1988). Establishing support systems for industrial co-operatives: case studies from the Third World. Aldershot, Hants, England Brookfield, Vt., U.S.A: Avebury Gower Pub. Co. ISBN 9780566054754.
* Abell, Peter (2006). Organisation theory: an interdisciplinary approach. University of London Press. OCLC 903146201.
* Abell, Peter; Engel, Ofer (2023). Ethnographic Causality. University of Groningen Press. ISBN 978-9403429472.

### Book chapters

* Abell, Peter (2011), "Singular Mechanisms and Bayesian Narratives", in Demeulenaere, Pierre (ed.), Analytical sociology and social mechanisms, Leiden: Cambridge University Press, pp. 121–135, ISBN 9781139082617.

### Journal articles

* Abell, Peter (1993). "Some aspects of narrative method". Journal of Mathematical Sociology. 18 (2–3). Taylor and Francis: 93–134. doi:10.1080/0022250X.1993.9990119.
* Abell, Peter (January 2003). "On the prospects of a unified social science". Socio-Economic Review. 1 (1). Oxford Journals: 1–26. doi:10.1093/soceco/1.1.1.
* Abell, Peter (2004). "Narrative explanation: an alternative to variable-centered explanation?". Annual Review of Sociology. 30. Annual Reviews: 287–310. doi:10.1146/annurev.soc.29.010202.100113. JSTOR 29737695.
* Abell, Peter (2007). "Narratives, Bayesian narratives and narrative actions". Sociologica. 1 (3). Società editrice il Mulino. doi:10.2383/25959. S2CID 143114149.
* Abell, Peter (November 2007). "Review: Are reasons explanations?: Why? What Happens When People Give Reasons... and Why by Charles Tilly". Contemporary Sociology. 36 (6). Sage: 532–534. doi:10.1177/009430610703600608. JSTOR 20443961. S2CID 143899770.
* Abell, Peter (August 2009). "A case for cases: comparative narratives in sociological explanation". Sociological Methods & Research. 38 (1). Sage: 38–70. doi:10.1177/0049124109339372. S2CID 119501003.