400 research outputs found
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
Opinion dynamics in a three-choice system
We generalize Galam's model of opinion spreading by introducing three
competing choices. At each update, the population is randomly divided in groups
of three agents, whose members adopt the opinion of the local majority. In the
case of a tie, the local group adopts opinion A, B or C with probabilities
alpha, beta and (1-alpha-beta) respectively. We derive the associated phase
diagrams and dynamics by both analytical means and simulations. Polarization is
always reached within very short time scales. We point out situations in which
an initially very small minority opinion can invade the whole system.Comment: To appear in European Physical Journal B. A few errors corrected,
some figures redrawn from the first versio
Sociophysics: A review of Galam models
We review a series of models of sociophysics introduced by Galam and Galam et
al in the last 25 years. The models are divided in five different classes,
which deal respectively with democratic voting in bottom up hierarchical
systems, decision making, fragmentation versus coalitions, terrorism and
opinion dynamics. For each class the connexion to the original physical model
and technics are outlined underlining both the similarities and the
differences. Emphasis is put on the numerous novel and counterintuitive results
obtained with respect to the associated social and political framework. Using
these models several major real political events were successfully predicted
including the victory of the French extreme right party in the 2000 first round
of French presidential elections, the voting at fifty - fifty in several
democratic countries (Germany, Italy, Mexico), and the victory of the no to the
2005 French referendum on the European constitution. The perspectives and the
challenges to make sociophysics a predictive solid field of science are
discussed.Comment: 17 pages, 20 figure
The dynamics of opinion in hierarchical organizations
We study the mutual influence of authority and persuasion in the flow of
opinion. Many social organizations are characterized by a hierarchical
structure where the propagation of opinion is asymmetric. In the normal flow of
opinion formation a high-rank agent uses its authority (or its persuasion when
necessary) to impose its opinion on others. However, agents with no authority
may only use the force of its persuasion to propagate their opinions. In this
contribution we describe a simple model with no social mobility, where each
agent belongs to a class in the hierarchy and has also a persuasion capability.
The model is studied numerically for a three levels case, and analytically
within a mean field approximation, with a very good agreement between the two
approaches. The stratum where the dominant opinion arises from is strongly
dependent on the percentage of agents in each hierarchy level, and we obtain a
phase diagram identifying the relative frequency of prevailing opinions. We
also find that the time evolution of the conflicting opinions polarizes after a
short transient.Comment: 6 pages, 5 figures, submitted to Phys. Rev.
A new conjecture extends the GM law for percolation thresholds to dynamical situations
The universal law for percolation thresholds proposed by Galam and Mauger
(GM) is found to apply also to dynamical situations. This law depends solely on
two variables, the space dimension d and a coordinance numberq. For regular
lattices, q reduces to the usual coordination number while for anisotropic
lattices it is an effective coordination number. For dynamical percolation we
conjecture that the law is still valid if we use the number q_2 of second
nearest neighbors instead of q. This conjecture is checked for the dynamic
epidemic model which considers the percolation phenomenon in a mobile
disordered system. The agreement is good.Comment: 8 pages, latex, 3 figures include
Chaotic, staggered and polarized dynamics in opinion forming: the contrarian effect
We revisit the no tie breaking 2-state Galam contrarian model of opinion
dynamics for update groups of size 3. While the initial model assumes a
constant density of contrarians a for both opinions, it now depends for each
opinion on its global support. Proportionate contrarians are thus found to
indeed preserve the former case main results. However, restricting the
contrarian behavior to only the current collective majority, makes the dynamics
more complex with novel features. For a density a<a_c=1/9 of one-sided
contrarians, a chaotic basin is found in the fifty-fifty region separated from
two majority-minority point attractors, one on each side. For 1/9<a< 0.301 only
the chaotic basin survives. In the range a>0.301 the chaotic basin disappears
and the majority starts to alternate between the two opinions with a staggered
flow towards two point attractors. We then study the effect of both, decoupling
the local update time sequence from the contrarian behavior activation, and a
smoothing of the majority rule. A status quo driven bias for contrarian
activation is also considered. Introduction of unsettled agents driven in the
debate on a contrarian basis is shown to only shrink the chaotic basin. The
model may shed light to recent apparent contradictory elections with on the one
hand very tied results like in US in 2000 and in Germany in 2002 and 2005, and
on the other hand, a huge majority like in France in 2002.Comment: 17 pages, 10 figure
Reshuffling spins with short range interactions: When sociophysics produces physical results
Galam reshuffling introduced in opinion dynamics models is investigated under
the nearest neighbor Ising model on a square lattice using Monte Carlo
simulations. While the corresponding Galam analytical critical temperature T_C
\approx 3.09 [J/k_B] is recovered almost exactly, it is proved to be different
from both values, not reshuffled (T_C=2/arcsinh(1) \approx 2.27 [J/k_B]) and
mean-field (T_C=4 [J/k_B]). On this basis, gradual reshuffling is studied as
function of 0 \leq p \leq 1 where p measures the probability of spin
reshuffling after each Monte Carlo step. The variation of T_C as function of p
is obtained and exhibits a non-linear behavior. The simplest Solomon network
realization is noted to reproduce Galam p=1 result. Similarly to the critical
temperature, critical exponents are found to differ from both, the classical
Ising case and the mean-field values.Comment: 11 pages, 5 figures in 6 eps files, to appear in IJMP
Self-consistency and Symmetry in d-dimensions
Bethe approximation is shown to violate Bravais lattices translational
invariance. A new scheme is then presented which goes over the one-site Weiss
model yet preserving initial lattice symmetry. A mapping to a one-dimensional
finite closed chain in an external field is obtained. Lattice topology
determines the chain size. Using recent results in percolation, lattice
connectivity between chains is argued to be where is the
coordination number and is the space dimension. A new self-consistent
mean-field equation of state is derived. Critical temperatures are thus
calculated for a large variety of lattices and dimensions. Results are within a
few percent of exact estimates. Moreover onset of phase transitions is found to
occur in the range . For the Ising hypercube it yields the Golden
number limit .Comment: 16 pages, latex, Phys. Rev. B (in press
Consensus Formation in Multi-state Majority and Plurality Models
We study consensus formation in interacting systems that evolve by
multi-state majority rule and by plurality rule. In an update event, a group of
G agents (with G odd), each endowed with an s-state spin variable, is
specified. For majority rule, all group members adopt the local majority state;
for plurality rule the group adopts the local plurality state. This update is
repeated until a final consensus state is generally reached. In the mean field
limit, the consensus time for an N-spin system increases as ln N for both
majority and plurality rule, with an amplitude that depends on s and G. For
finite spatial dimensions, domains undergo diffusive coarsening in majority
rule when s or G is small. For larger s and G, opinions spread ballistically
from the few groups with an initial local majority. For plurality rule, there
is always diffusive domain coarsening toward consensus.Comment: 8 pages, 11 figures, 2-column revtex4 format. Updated version: small
changes in response to referee comments. For publication in J Phys
A New Universality for Random Sequential Deposition of Needles
Percolation and jamming phenomena are investigated for random sequential
deposition of rectangular needles on square lattices. Associated
thresholds and are determined for various needle
sizes. Their ratios are found to be a constant for all sizes. In addition the ratio of jamming thresholds for
respectively square blocks and needles is also found to be a constant . These constants exhibit some universal connexion in the geometry of
jamming and percolation for both anisotropic shapes (needles versus square
lattices) and isotropic shapes (square blocks on square lattices). A universal
empirical law is proposed for all three thresholds as a function of .Comment: 9 pages, latex, 4 eps figures include
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