Modeling the nonlinear effects of opinion kinematics in elections: A simple Ising model with random field based study

Mukesh Tiwari, Xiguang Yang and Surajit Sen

Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, 2021, vol. 582, issue C

Abstract: Inspired by partisan competitions and contentious elections in democratic countries, we numerically explore the effect of campaign strategies and related factors on the opinion of an electorate. The nature of the electorate is modeled through agents with different behaviors, such as, being conformist, contrarian or inflexible. The agents are assumed to take discrete opinion values that depend on both internal and external influences. The inhomogeneity of external influence on individuals is modeled as a random field. Two types of electorates have been considered. In an electorate with only conformist agents short-duration high impact campaigns are highly effective. These are, however, also sensitive to perturbations at the local level modeled as inflexibles and/or absentees. In electorates with both conformist and contrarian agents and varying level of dominance due to local factors, short-term campaigns are effective only in the case of fragile dominance of a single party. Strong local dominance is relatively difficult to influence and long term campaigns with strategies aimed to impact local level politics are seen to be more effective.

Keywords: Sociophysics; Opinion dynamics; Elections; Random field Ising model (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:phsmap:v:582:y:2021:i:c:s0378437121005604

DOI: 10.1016/j.physa.2021.126287

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