A thermodynamic-like characterization of Colombia’s presidential elections in 2010, and a comparison with other Latin American countries

Diógenes Campos

Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, 2011, vol. 390, issue 10, 1779-1790

Abstract: A thermodynamic-like characterization of Colombia’s presidential election is presented. We assume that the electoral system consists of citizens embedded in a political environment, and that this environment can be considered as an information bath characterized by the entropic parameter q (q∈[0,∞]). First, for q=1, the electoral outcomes of 2010 are translated into a set of probabilities (relative frequencies of the events) P={P1,P2,…,PN}, with N possible independent results. Then, for 0≤q<∞, the electoral system is characterized by using the thermodynamic-like method for probabilistic systems proposed in a previous article. Some general considerations of the macro-description of a probabilistic system and a comparison of presidential elections in five countries are also included.

Keywords: Probability distributions; Thermodynamic description; Electoral system; Voting process; Social systems (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2011
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:phsmap:v:390:y:2011:i:10:p:1779-1790

DOI: 10.1016/j.physa.2011.01.017

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