Scale-free networks, 1/f dynamics, and nonlinear conflict size scaling from an agent-based simulation model of societal-scale bilateral conflict and cooperation

Sean W. Fleming

Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, 2021, vol. 567, issue C

Abstract: An agent-based model is presented that mechanistically simulates social interactions across two partially coupled lattices, each containing a mixture of individualists, networkers, and reciprocators. Numerical experiments reveal evidence for two spontaneously emergent and widely relevant complex behaviors: self-organized criticality generating fractal (1/f) dynamics, and a scale-free (power-law degree distribution) network, adding to the short list of generative mechanisms for these phenomena. The model may also suggest explanatory hypotheses for two sociological puzzles: Richardson’s scaling law for war size; and an inverse relationship between actor scale and water resource conflict, potentially relevant to this century’s prognosticated water wars. Adjusting a handful of model parameters yields a diverse set of fundamentally different behaviors, perhaps implying model applicability to a wide range of social systems and that comparatively simple social engineering steps could conceivably induce large social shifts.

Keywords: Self-organized criticality; Scaling; Scale-free networks; Fractal dynamics; Agent-based​ models (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:phsmap:v:567:y:2021:i:c:s0378437120309766

DOI: 10.1016/j.physa.2020.125678

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