Opinion Dynamics and Political Persuasion

David Desmarchelier and Thomas Lanzi

Revue d'économie politique, 2023, vol. 133, issue 6, 907-924

Abstract: This paper proposes to adapt a simple disease spread model for political persuasion. More precisely, we observe how a policy presented by a leader prevails in a committee divided into two groups: supporters and opponents. At each date, agents from the two groups meet and influence each other due to the leader?s persuasion force. If the leader?s persuasion force dominates (is dominated), then some opponents (supporters) become supporters (opponents). Moreover, agents can also change their opinions simply because of the symbolic attraction force exerted by the group or the leader. In the long run, it appears that a high attraction force can compensate for a lack of persuasion force to ensure that more than half of the members subscribe to the policy presented by the leader. Such a situation is stable. Conversely, a high persuasion force, when the attraction force of the leader?s group is relatively low, can generate the occurrence of a two-period cycle through a flip bifurcation such that the leader loses the majority from one period to another.

Keywords: Flip bifurcation; Opinion dynamics; Political persuasion; SIS models (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
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