102,556 research outputs found
Entrenched time delays versus accelerating opinion dynamics: are advanced democracies inherently unstable?
Modern societies face the challenge that the time scale of opinion formation
is continuously accelerating in contrast to the time scale of political
decision making. With the latter remaining of the order of the election cycle
we examine here the case that the political state of a society is determined by
the continuously evolving values of the electorate. Given this assumption we
show that the time lags inherent in the election cycle will inevitable lead to
political instabilities for advanced democracies characterized both by an
accelerating pace of opinion dynamics and by high sensibilities (political
correctness) to deviations from mainstream values. Our result is based on the
observation that dynamical systems become generically unstable whenever time
delays become comparable to the time it takes to adapt to the steady state. The
time needed to recover from external shocks grows in addition dramatically
close to the transition. Our estimates for the order of magnitude of the
involved time scales indicate that socio-political instabilities may develop
once the aggregate time scale for the evolution of the political values of the
electorate falls below 7-15 months.Comment: European Physical Journal B (in press
From 2000 Bush-Gore to 2006 Italian elections: Voting at fifty-fifty and the Contrarian Effect
A sociophysical model for opinion dynamics is shown to embody a series of
recent western hung national votes all set at the unexpected and very
improbable edge of a fifty-fifty score. It started with the Bush-Gore 2000
American presidential election, followed by the 2002 Stoiber-Schr\H{o}der, then
the 2005 Schr\H{o}der-Merkel German elections, and finally the 2006
Prodi-Berlusconi Italian elections. In each case, the country was facing
drastic choices, the running competing parties were advocating very different
programs and millions of voters were involved. Moreover, polls were given a
substantial margin for the predicted winner. While all these events were
perceived as accidental and isolated, our model suggests that indeed they are
deterministic and obey to one single universal phenomena associated to the
effect of contrarian behavior on the dynamics of opinion forming. The not hung
Bush-Kerry 2005 presidential election is shown to belong to the same universal
frame. To conclude, the existence of contrarians hints at the repetition of
hung elections in the near future.Comment: 17 pages, 8 figure
Comparing nuclear power trajectories in Germany and the UK: from ‘regimes' to ‘democracies’ in sociotechnical transitions and Discontinuities
This paper focuses on arguably the single most striking contrast in contemporary major energy politics in Europe (and even the developed world as a whole): the starkly differing civil nuclear policies of Germany and the UK. Germany is seeking entirely to phase out nuclear power by 2022. Yet the UK advocates a ‘nuclear renaissance’, promoting the most ambitious new nuclear construction programme in Western Europe.Here,this paper poses a simple yet quite fundamental question: what are the particular divergent conditions most strongly implicated in the contrasting developments in these two countries. With nuclear playing such an iconic role in historical discussions over technological continuity and transformation, answering this may assist in wider understandings of sociotechnical incumbency and discontinuity in the burgeoning field of‘sustainability transitions’. To this end, an ‘abductive’ approach is taken: deploying nine potentially relevant criteria for understanding the different directions pursued in Germany and the UK. Together constituted by 30 parameters spanning literatures related to socio-technical regimes in general as well as nuclear technology in particular, the criteria are divided into those that are ‘internal’ and ‘external’ to the ‘focal regime configuration’ of nuclear power and associated ‘challenger technologies’ like renewables.
It is ‘internal’ criteria that are emphasised in conventional sociotechnical regime theory, with ‘external’ criteria relatively less well explored. Asking under each criterion whether attempted discontinuation of nuclear power would be more likely in Germany or the UK, a clear picture emerges. ‘Internal’ criteria suggest attempted nuclear discontinuation should be more likely in the UK than in Germany– the reverse of what is occurring.
‘External’ criteria are more aligned with observed dynamics –especially those relating to military nuclear commitments and broader ‘qualities of democracy’. Despite many differences of framing concerning exactly what constitutes ‘democracy’, a rich political science literature on this point is unanimous in characterising Germany more positively than the UK. Although based only on a single case,a potentially important question is nonetheless raised as to whether sociotechnical regime theory might usefully give greater attention to the general importance of various aspects of democracy in constituting conditions for significant technological discontinuities and transformations. If so, the policy implications are significant. A number of important areas are identified for future research, including the roles of diverse understandings and specific aspects of democracy and the particular relevance of military nuclear commitments– whose under-discussion in civil nuclear policy literatures raises its own questions of democratic accountability
Electoral surveys influence on the voting processes: a cellular automata model
Nowadays, in societies threatened by atomization, selfishness, short-term
thinking, and alienation from political life, there is a renewed debate about
classical questions concerning the quality of democratic decision-making. In
this work a cellular automata (CA) model for the dynamics of free elections
based on the social impact theory is proposed. By using computer simulations,
power law distributions for the size of electoral clusters and decision time
have been obtained. The major role of broadcasted electoral surveys in guiding
opinion formation and stabilizing the ``{\it status quo}'' was demonstrated.
Furthermore, it was shown that in societies where these surveys are manipulated
within the universally accepted statistical error bars, even a majoritary
opposition could be hindered from reaching the power through the electoral
path.Comment: 15 pages, 9 figure
Phase transition in the Sznajd model with independence
We propose a model of opinion dynamics which describes two major types of
social influence -- conformity and independence. Conformity in our model is
described by the so called outflow dynamics (known as Sznajd model). According
to sociologists' suggestions, we introduce also a second type of social
influence, known in social psychology as independence. Various social
experiments have shown that the level of conformity depends on the society. We
introduce this level as a parameter of the model and show that there is a
continuous phase transition between conformity and independence
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