An Agent‐Based Model of Centralized Institutions, Social Network Technology, and Revolution
Michael D. Makowsky,Jared Rubin +1 more
TL;DR: It is found that preference falsification is increasing with centralization and decreasing with social network range, which leads to greater cascades of preference revelation and thus more institutional change in highly centralized societies and this effect is exacerbated at greater social network ranges.
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Abstract: Recent uprisings in the Arab world consist of individuals revealing vastly different preferences than were expressed prior to the uprisings. This paper sheds light on the general mechanisms underlying large-scale social and institutional change. We employ an agent-based model to test the impact of authority centralization and social network technology on preference revelation and falsification, social protest, and institutional change. We find that the amount of social and institutional change is decreasing with authority centralization in simulations with low network range but is increasing with authority centralization in simulations with greater network range. The relationship between institutional change and social shocks is not linear, but rather is characterized by sharp discontinuities. The threshold at which a shock can “tip” a system towards institutional change is decreasing with the geographic reach of citizen social networks. Farther reaching social networks reduce the robustness and resilience of central authorities to change. This helps explain why highly centralized regimes frequently attempt to restrict information flows via the media and Internet. More generally, our results highlight the role that information and communication technology can play in triggering cascades of preference revelation and revolutionary activity in varying institutional regimes.
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Citations
Rulers, Religion, and Riches: Why the West Got Rich and the Middle East Did Not
Jared Rubin
- 01 Feb 2017
TL;DR: Rubin argues that the importance of religious legitimacy in Middle Eastern politics was the primary culprit for the reversal of fortunes of the Middle East economy as mentioned in this paper, arguing that the Church played a weaker role in legitimizing rule in Europe, especially where Protestantism spread.
Challenges, tasks, and opportunities in modeling agent-based complex systems
Li An,Volker Grimm,Abigail Sullivan,Billie Turner,Nicolas Malleson,Alison J. Heppenstall,Christian E. Vincenot,Derek T. Robinson,Xinyue Ye,Jianguo Liu,Emilie Lindkvist,Wenwu Tang +11 more
TL;DR: This article reviews the advances of ABM in social, ecological, and socio-ecological systems, compares ABM with other traditional, equation-based models, provides guidelines for ABM novice, modelers, and reviewers, and point out the challenges and impending tasks that need to be addressed for the ABM community.
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Information Cascades and Revolutionary Regime Transitions
Christopher J. Ellis,John Fender +1 more
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors combine Acemoglu and Robinson's model of the economic origins of democracy with Lohmann's model for political mass protest, and derive conditions under which democracy arises peacefully, when it occurs only after a revolution and when oligarchy persists.
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TL;DR: The first national estimate of the prevalence of HBsAg seropositivity and its associated factors in Rwanda is provided and people with the highest risk of HBV infection should be the priority of future prevention efforts in Rwanda and in similar settings.
Connectivity of Marine Protected Areas and Its Relation with Total Kinetic Energy.
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