Polarization of coalitions in an agent-based model of political discourse

Leifeld, P. (2014) Polarization of coalitions in an agent-based model of political discourse. Computational Social Networks, 1(1), 7. (doi: 10.1186/s40649-014-0007-y)

Abstract

Political discourse is the verbal interaction between political actors in a policy domain. This article explains the formation of polarized advocacy or discourse coalitions in this complex phenomenon by presenting a dynamic, stochastic, and discrete agent-based model based on graph theory and local optimization. In a series of thought experiments, actors compute their utility of contributing a specific statement to the discourse by following ideological criteria, preferential attachment, agenda-setting strategies, governmental coherence, or other mechanisms. The evolving macro-level discourse is represented as a dynamic network and evaluated against arguments from the literature on the policy process. A simple combination of four theoretical mechanisms is already able to produce artificial policy debates with theoretically plausible properties. Any sufficiently realistic configuration must entail innovative and path-dependent elements as well as a blend of exogenous preferences and endogenous opinion formation mechanisms.

• Item Type: Articles
• Keywords: Political discourse, policy debates, discourse coalitions, advocacy coalitions, polarization, social balance.
• Status: Published
• Refereed: Yes
• Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID: Leifeld, Professor Philip
• Authors: Leifeld, P.
• Subjects: H Social Sciences > H Social Sciences (General); H Social Sciences > HA Statistics; H Social Sciences > HM Sociology; J Political Science > JA Political science (General)
• College/School: College of Social Sciences > School of Social and Political Sciences
• Journal Name: Computational Social Networks
• Publisher: Springer
• ISSN: 2197-4314
• ISSN (Online): 2197-4314
• Copyright Holders: Copyright © 2014 Philip Leifeld
• First Published: First published in Computational Social Networks 1(1): 7
• Publisher Policy: Reproduced under a Creative Commons License