Political Attitudes: Computational and Simulation Modelling

 

Computational Modeling of Political Attitudes

 

Camelia Florela Voinea, Department of Political Science, International Relations and Security Studies, University of Bucharest, Bucharest, Romania

 

Political Science has traditionally employed empirical research and analytical resources to understand, explain and predict political phenomena. One of the long–standing criticisms against empirical modeling targets the static perspective provided by the model–invariant paradigm. In political science research, this issue has a particular relevance since political phenomena prove sophisticated degrees of context–dependency whose complexity could be hardly captured by traditional approaches. To cope with the complexity challenge, a new modeling paradigm was needed. This book is concerned with this challenge. Moreover, the book aims to reveal the power of computational modeling of political attitudes to reinforce the political methodology in facing two fundamental challenges: political culture modeling and polity modeling. The book argues that an artificial polity model as a powerful research instrument could hardly be effective without the political attitude and, by extension, the political culture computational and simulation modeling theory, experiments and practice.

 

This book:

Summarizes the state of the art in the computational modeling of political attitudes, with illustrations and examples featured throughout. Explores the different approaches to computational modeling and how the complexity requirements of political science should determine the direction of research and evaluation methods. Addresses the newly emerging discipline of computational political science. Discusses modeling paradigms, agent–based modeling and simulation, and complexity–based modeling. Discusses model classes in the fundamental areas of voting behavior and decision–making, collective action, ideology and partisanship, emergence of social uprisings and civil conflict, international relations, allocation of public resources, polity and institutional function, operation, development and reform, political attitude formation and change in democratic societies.

 

This book is ideal for students who need a conceptual and operational description of the political attitude computational modeling phases, goals and outcomes in order to understand how political attitudes could be computationally modeled and simulated. Researchers, Governmental and international policy experts will also benefit from this book.

 

 

Preface

Acknowledgements

Part 1: Social and Political Attitude Modeling

Chapter 1: Attitudes: Brief History of the Concept

Chapter 2: Computational Modeling in Social and Political Attitude Research

Part 2: Social and Political Influence Models of Attitude Change

Chapter 3: Voting Choice Computer Simulation Model (McPhee, 1963)

Chapter 4: Community Referendum Model (Abelson and Bernstein, 1963)

Part 3: The Role of Physical Space in Political Attitude Modeling

Chapter 5: Social Impact Theory and Model (Latané, 1981)

Chapter 6: Dynamic Social Impact Theory and Model (Nowak, Szamrej and Latané, 1990)

Part 4: Political Attitudes in Collective Behaviors and Collective Action Modeling

Chapter 7: Culture Dissemination Model (Axelrod, 1997)

Chapter 8: Diversity Survival Model (Huckfeldt, Johnson and Sprague, 2004)

Chapter 9: Political Contagion (Johnson, 1999)

Part 5: Multidimensional Spatial Models

Chapter 10: System Dynamics Modeling Paradigm

Chapter 11: Multidimensional Attitude Change Models (Woelfel and Saltiel, 1978)

Part 6: Political Cognition Modeling

Chapter 12: JQP Model (Kim, Lodge and Taber, 2010)

Chapter 13: Political Attitude Strength Simulation Model, PASS, (Kottonau, 2002)

Part 7: Computational and Simulation Modeling of Ideology

Chapter 14: Dynamical Political Polarization Model (Baldassari and Bearman, 2007)

Chapter 15: Ideological Landscapes Model (Lorenz, 2014)

Chapter 16: Complex Integrative Models of Political Ideology (Homer–Dixon et al., 2013)

Part 8: Polity Modeling

Chapter 17: Polity Instability Models of Ethnic and Nationalist Insurgence (Cederman and Girardin, 2007)

Chapter 18: Polity Re–Construction Model (Sakamoto and Endo, 2015)

Chapter 19: MASON RebeLand Model (Cioffi–Revilla and Rouleau, 2010)

Chapter 20: Compartmental Model (Lang and De Sterck, 2012)

Epilogue

Chapter 21: Shaping New Science

References

Index