Related papers: Divide and Diverge
The rate of adoption of new information depends on reinforcement from multiple sources in a way that often cannot be described by simple contagion processes. In such cases, contagion is said to be complex. Complex contagion happens in the…
The increasing polarization in democratic societies is an emergent outcome of political opinion dynamics. Yet, the fundamental mechanisms behind the formation of political opinions, from individual beliefs to collective consensus, remain…
Social networks are increasingly being used to conduct polls. We introduce a simple model of such social polling. We suppose agents vote sequentially, but the order in which agents choose to vote is not necessarily fixed. We also suppose…
Opinion dynamics, the evolution of individuals through social interactions, is an important area of research with applications ranging from politics to marketing. Due to its interdisciplinary relevance, studies of opinion dynamics remain…
Many democratic societies use district-based elections, where the region under consideration is geographically divided into districts and a representative is chosen for each district based on the preferences of the electors who reside…
In certain parliamentary democracies, there are two major parties that move in and out of power every few elections, and a third minority party that essentially never governs. We present a simple model to account for this phenomenon, in…
We study the effects of campaigning, where the society is partitioned into voter clusters and a diffusion process propagates opinions in a network connecting the clusters. Our model is very powerful and can incorporate many campaigning…
We characterise multi-candidate pure-strategy equilibria in the Hotelling-Downs spatial election model for the class of best-worst voting rules, in which each voter is endowed with both a positive and a negative vote, i.e., each voter can…
We investigate the phenomena of political bi-polarization in a population of interacting agents by means of a generalized version of the model introduced in PRE E 101, 012101 (2020) for the dynamics of voting intention. Each agent has a…
This paper introduces a model for opinion dynamics, where at each time step, randomly selected agents see their opinions - modeled as scalars in [0,1] - evolve depending on a local interaction function. In the classical Bounded Confidence…
Prior research shows that public opinion on climate politics sorts along partisan lines. However, they leave open the question of whether climate politics and other politically salient issues exhibit tendencies for issue alignment, which…
We present a novel explanation for the group polarization effect whereby discussion among like-minded individuals induces shifts toward the extreme. Our theory distinguishes between a quantitative policy under debate and the discussion's…
We study how electoral rules shape polarization dynamics when voters and candidates both adapt to repeated election outcomes. We introduce two geometric primitives for comparing rules under this feedback: the \emph{winner radius} $R_t =…
Ideologically homogeneous online environments - often described as "echo chambers" or "filter bubbles" - are widely seen as drivers of polarization, radicalization, and misinformation. A central debate asks whether such homophily stems…
We model an electorate voting on the funding of a public good in a two-party system in an evolutionary game theory framework. Voters adopt one of four strategies: Consensus-makers, Gridlockers, Party 1 Zealots, and Party 2 Zealots, which…
A general model of opinion dynamics is introduced in which each individual's opinion is measured on a bounded continuous spectrum. Each opinion is influenced heterogeneously by every other opinion in the population. It is demonstrated that…
One of the fundamental principles driving diversity or homogeneity in domains such as cultural differentiation, political affiliation, and product adoption is the tension between two forces: influence (the tendency of people to become…
In this paper, we introduce the Iterative Persuasion-Polarization (IPP) model to study the dynamics of opinion formation and change within a population. The IPP model integrates mechanisms of persuasion and repulsion, where individuals…
Online social networks provide a medium for citizens to form opinions on different societal issues, and a forum for public discussion. They also expose users to viral content, such as breaking news articles. In this paper, we study the…
Rumors have ignited revolutions, undermined the trust in political parties, or threatened the stability of human societies. Such destructive potential has been significantly enhanced by the development of on-line social networks. Several…