IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/phsmap/v336y2004i1p56-62.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The dynamics of minority opinions in democratic debate

Author

Listed:
  • Galam, Serge

Abstract

A model for the dynamics of opinion forming in democratic public debate is presented. Using concepts and techniques from the physics of disorder the dynamics of social refusal spreading is studied within a perfect world, where the minority holds neither better arguments nor lobbying backing. The one-person-one-vote rule, together with local majority rules, are used to determine the outcome of local group discussions. In case of a local tie, the group decides on keeping the Status Quo. The geometry of social life shaped by offices, houses, bars, and restaurants is shown to determine the distribution size of these discussion groups. It is found to yield very asymmetric unstable thresholds to the total spreading of one opinion at the benefit of the refusal one. The associated dynamics is rather quick and completed within few days. This democratic paradox of public debate driven majority opinion reversal is discussed in light of some European construction issues. The model may apply to rumor and fear propagation.

Suggested Citation

  • Galam, Serge, 2004. "The dynamics of minority opinions in democratic debate," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 336(1), pages 56-62.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:phsmap:v:336:y:2004:i:1:p:56-62
    DOI: 10.1016/j.physa.2004.01.010
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0378437104000330
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only. Journal offers the option of making the article available online on Science direct for a fee of $3,000
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.physa.2004.01.010?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Sven Banisch & Tanya Araújo & Jorge Louçã, 2010. "Opinion Dynamics And Communication Networks," Advances in Complex Systems (ACS), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 13(01), pages 95-111.
    2. Nizamani, Sarwat & Memon, Nasrullah & Galam, Serge, 2014. "From public outrage to the burst of public violence: An epidemic-like model," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 416(C), pages 620-630.
    3. Gwizdalla, Tomasz M., 2008. "Gallagher index for sociophysical models," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 387(12), pages 2937-2951.
    4. Balankin, Alexander S. & Martínez Cruz, Miguel Ángel & Martínez, Alfredo Trejo, 2011. "Effect of initial concentration and spatial heterogeneity of active agent distribution on opinion dynamics," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 390(21), pages 3876-3887.
    5. F. Jacobs & S. Galam, 2019. "Two-Opinions-Dynamics Generated By Inflexibles And Non-Contrarian And Contrarian Floaters," Advances in Complex Systems (ACS), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 22(04), pages 1-30, June.
    6. Qian, Shen & Liu, Yijun & Galam, Serge, 2015. "Activeness as a key to counter democratic balance," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 432(C), pages 187-196.
    7. Lo Schiavo, Mauro & Prinari, Barbara & Saito, Ikuko & Shoji, Kotaro & Benight, Charles C., 2019. "A dynamical systems approach to triadic reciprocal determinism of social cognitive theory," Mathematics and Computers in Simulation (MATCOM), Elsevier, vol. 159(C), pages 18-38.
    8. Gaudiano, Marcos E. & Revelli, Jorge A., 2019. "Spontaneous emergence of a third position in an opinion formation model," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 521(C), pages 501-511.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:phsmap:v:336:y:2004:i:1:p:56-62. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.journals.elsevier.com/physica-a-statistical-mechpplications/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.