A study leverages concepts from physics to model how campaign strategies influence the opinions of an electorate in a two-party system.

Researchers created a numerical model that describes how external influences, modeled as a random field, shift the views of potential voters as they interact with each other in different political environments.

The model accounts for the behavior of conformists (people whose views align with the views of the majority in a social network); contrarians (people whose views oppose the views of the majority); and inflexibles (people who will not change their opinions).

«The interplay between these behaviors allows us to create electorates with diverse behaviors interacting in environments with different levels of dominance by political parties,» says first author Mukesh Tiwari, PhD, associate professor at the Dhirubhai Ambani Institute of Information and Communication Technology.

«We are able to model the behavior and conflicts of democracies, and capture different types of behavior that we see in elections,» says senior author Surajit Sen, PhD, professor of physics in the University at Buffalo College of Arts and Sciences.

Sen and Tiwari conducted the study with Xiguang Yang, a former UB physics student. Jacob Neiheisel, PhD, associate professor of political science at UB, provided feedback to the team, but was not an author of the research. The study was published online in Physica A in July and will appear in the journal’s Nov. 15 volume.

Story Source: Materials provided by University at Buffalo. Original written by Charlotte Hsu. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.