Related papers: Do two parties represent the US? Clustering analys…
This paper introduces a definition of ideological polarization of an electorate around a particular central point. The definition is flexible about the location or boundaries of the center. Using US survey data, the paper shows how this…
In democracies, major policy decisions typically require some form of majority or consensus, so elites must secure mass support to govern. Historically, elites could shape support only through limited instruments like schooling and mass…
Democracies employ elections at various scales to select officials at the corresponding levels of administration. The geographical distribution of political opinion, the policy issues delegated to each level, and the multilevel interactions…
The concept of ``ideology" is central to political discourse and dynamics, and is often cast as falling primarily on a one-dimensional scale from ``left-wing/liberal" to ``right-wing/conservative", but the validity of this simple…
Search engines play an important role in the context of modern elections. By curating information in response to user queries, search engines influence how individuals are informed about election-related developments and perceive the media…
Research on the causes of political polarization points towards multiple drivers of the problem, from social and psychological to economic and technological. However, political institutions stand out, because -- while capable of…
Third political parties are influential in shaping American politics. In this work we study the spread of a third party ideology in a voting population where we assume that party members/activists are more influential in recruiting new…
The study of complex political phenomena such as parties' polarization calls for mathematical models of political systems. In this paper, we aim at modeling the time evolution of a political system whereby various parties selfishly interact…
We introduce a socially motivated extension of the voter model in which individual voters are also influenced by two opposing, fixed-opinion news sources. These sources forestall consensus and instead drive the population to a politically…
We here study the behavior of political party members aiming at identifying how ideological communities are created and evolve over time in diverse (fragmented and non-fragmented) party systems. Using public voting data of both Brazil and…
We give a proof of the multi-party typicality conjecture for the first nontrivial case when there are only two parties. The conjecture itself is motivated by the study of multi-party state merging protocols on quantum systems. Our approach…
The dynamics of political opinion are a critical component of modern society with large-scale implications for the evolution of intra- and international political discourse and policy. Here we utilize recent high-resolution survey data to…
Evolutionary societal changes often prompt a debate. The positions of the two major political parties in the United States on civil rights issues underwent a reversal in the 20th century. The conventional view holds that this shift was a…
We study the effect of time-fluctuating social influences on the formation of polarization and consensus in a three-party community consisting of two types of voters ("leftists" and "rightists") holding extreme opinions, and moderate agents…
Representative democracy in the United States relies on election systems that transmit votes into representatives in three key bodies: the two chambers of the federal legislature (House of Representatives and Senate) and the Electoral…
Many democratic political parties hold primary elections, which nicely reflects their democratic nature and promote, among other things, the democratic value of inclusiveness. However, the methods currently used for holding such primary…
Polarization is a major concern for a well-functioning society. Often, mass polarization of a society is driven by polarizing political representation, even when the latter is easily preventable. The existing computational social choice…
Measure what is measurable, and make measurable what is not so (Galileo Galilei). According to the above sentence we do not ask why we need to measure democracy but if it is possible to measure something which is not unequivocally defined.…
We examine partisan differences in the behavior, communication patterns and social interactions of more than 18,000 politically-active Twitter users to produce evidence that points to changing levels of partisan engagement with the American…
Politically divided societies are also often divided emotionally: people like and trust those with similar political views (in-group favoritism) while disliking and distrusting those with different views (out-group animosity). This…