Democracies under threat


Nov 30, 2018

Complexity science can help to understand democracy

 

What makes a democracy stable? Or, on the opposite, what contributes to its decline? A multidisciplinary team, led by CSH External Faculty member Karoline Wiesner and with the participation of CSH researcher David Garcia, explored these questions from a complexity perspective.

 

Missing theory of destabilisation

 

As the latest votes show, democracies all around the world are changing – and not necessarily to the better. Recent developments like the Brexit referendum, the elections of Donald Trump as president of the United States or of Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil are only the tip of the iceberg. Indices measuring democratic values and developments, like the Economist Intelligence Unit or the Freedom House Democracy Index, have been observing a constant decline in many countries since several years.

 

But whereas the problem as such gains attention, “we lack the theory to show us how a democracy destabilises to the point it is not describable as a democracy anymore,” says mathematician and physicist Karoline Wiesner. Early in 2018, Karoline invited mathematicians, economists, psychologists, philosophers, sociologists and political scientists to a workshop at Bristol University to see if complexity science could contribute to such a theory and understanding.

 

Now the workshop participants published a paper about their findings: “Stability of democracies: a complex systems perspective” appeared this week in the European Journal of Physics.

 

Unintended feedback loops

 

The paper discusses several of the many mechanisms resulting in institutional instability, such as social inequality, financial shocks, or the disconnected information flow on social media. Many of these mechanisms are interconnected, some even multiply interconnected, the authors explain. This can lead to unexpected and often unwarranted feedback loops.

 

An example are US media: In the United States, media are much less regulated than in Europe. One effect is, that many of them do not comply with (media) ethical principles, like fact-checking or a balanced presentation of information. These media are highly dependent on their audience’s support: A large audience rises the income through advertising. To keep their audience happy, they tend to present information and perspectives in a way that supports and enhances prejudices and beliefs of their viewers, listeners, or readers. They, in return, see their views confirmed and legitimized. In physics such a mutual reinforcement is called positive feedback (the word “positive” not meaning “desirable”, but “enhancing”).

 

The fall of social media

 

This mechanism works even stronger in social media with their meanwhile well known “echo chambers” and “tailor-made” messages that use and further enhance biased opinions and beliefs without the possibility of a correction.

 

One of the important messages in their paper, says Karoline, “is that a stabilizing feature of a democratic system – opinion exchange – breaks down when the possibility of engagement and debate is destroyed because messages are disseminated in secret, targeting individuals based on their personal vulnerabilities to persuasion, without their knowledge and without the opponent being able to rebut any of those arguments. These impacts of social media on public discourse show how democracies can be vulnerable in ways against which institutional structures and historical traditions offer little protection.”

 

This insight makes it even more important to understand the underlying processes. “[T]he scientific and quantitative analysis of the question of stability of democracy is possible and, indeed, necessary,” says the paper. “It requires a concerted effort across the mathematical, natural and social sciences.” In particular,  the authors conclude, it is complexity science with its new tools and insights that can substantially contribute to an understanding of, well, complex social developments.

 


Press

175.000 personas al servicio de los cárteles mexicanos, según estudio


CNN, Sep 22, 2023

Publication

R. Prieto-Curiel, G. M. Capedelli, A. Hope

Reducing cartel recruitment is the only way to lower violence in Mexico

Science 381(6664) (2023) 1312-1316

Publication

B. Méro, A. Borsos, et al.

A High-Resolution, Data-Driven Agent-Based Model of the Housing Market

Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control (2023) 104738

News

Sep 18, 2023

Unlocking Urban Diversity: The Magnetism of Complex Amenities

Press

Es gibt auch gute Klima-Nachrichten


SZ, Sep 22, 2023

Press

Study reveals organized crime is the fifth-largest employer in Mexico


El Pais, Sep 22, 2023

News

Sep 21, 2023

Curbing the Violence by Mexican Cartels

News

Sep 18, 2023

Why do some environmental shocks lead to disaster while others don't?

Publication

S. Juhász, G. Pintér, et al.

Amenity complexity and urban locations of socio-economic mixing

EPJ Data Science 12 (2023) 34

News

Sep 21, 2023

Curbing the Violence by Mexican Cartels

News

Sep 18, 2023

Unlocking Urban Diversity: The Magnetism of Complex Amenities

News

Sep 18, 2023

Why do some environmental shocks lead to disaster while others don't?

News

Aug 31, 2023

New study uncovers the Causes of the Qing Dynasty's Collapse

News

Aug 28, 2023

CSH hosts workshop on visualizing complexity science

Spotlight

Aug 22, 2023

Wallet 2.0: What Does the Future of Money Look Like?

Spotlight

Aug 14, 2023

Open Arms Grant: How conferences can ensure global participation

News

Aug 1, 2023

Scientists develop method to spot the spread of armed conflicts

News

Jul 27, 2023

A lot of exchanges and discussions at NetSci

News

Jul 20, 2023

Prenatal malnutrition increases diabetes incidence later in life

Spotlight

Jun 29, 2023

CSH Spin-Off Iknaio receives aws seed funding

Press

175.000 personas al servicio de los cárteles mexicanos, según estudio


CNN, Sep 22, 2023

Press

Study reveals organized crime is the fifth-largest employer in Mexico


El Pais, Sep 22, 2023

Press

Es gibt auch gute Klima-Nachrichten


SZ, Sep 22, 2023

Press

Kindesmissbrauch: Wie Kriminelle die Anonymität des Darknets nutzen


Kurier, Sep 7, 2023

Press

L'effondrement de la dernière dynastie chinoise des Qing, un avertissement pour le futur ?


GEO, Sep 6, 2023

Press

Warum Saudi-Arabiens ehrgeizige Stadt der Zukunft nicht optimal ist


Spektrum der Wissenschaft, Sep 6, 2023

Press

Qing Dynasty’s Collapse Driven By Three Things, And They Could Happen To Us


IFL Science, Sep 4, 2023

Press

Warum die Qing-Dynastie unterging


ORF, Sep 5, 2023

Press

There are thousands of cities in the world, and there’s a reason none is in the shape of a line


Fast Company, Aug 12, 2023

Publication

R. Prieto-Curiel, G. M. Capedelli, A. Hope

Reducing cartel recruitment is the only way to lower violence in Mexico

Science 381(6664) (2023) 1312-1316

Publication

B. Méro, A. Borsos, et al.

A High-Resolution, Data-Driven Agent-Based Model of the Housing Market

Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control (2023) 104738

Publication

S. Juhász, G. Pintér, et al.

Amenity complexity and urban locations of socio-economic mixing

EPJ Data Science 12 (2023) 34

Publication

R. Hanel, S. Thurner

Equivalence of information production and generalised entropies in complex processes

PLOS ONE 18(9) (2023) e0290695

Publication

K. Frenken, F. Neffke, A. van Dam

Capabilities, institutions and regional economic development: a proposed synthesis

Cambridge Journal of Regions, Economy and Society (2023) rsad021

Publication

G. Orlandi, D. Hoyer, et al.

Structural-demographic analysis of the Qing Dynasty (1644–1912) collapse in China

PLoS ONE 18(8) (2023) e0289748

Publication

N. Kushwaha, E.D. Lee

Discovering the mesoscale for chains of conflict

PNAS Nexus 2(7) (2023) pgad228

Publication

H. Metzler, D. Garcia

Social Drivers and Algorithmic Mechanisms on Digital Media

Perspectives on Psychological Science (2023)

Publication

M. Laber, P. Klimek, et al.

Shock propagation from the Russia–Ukraine conflict on international multilayer food production network determines global food availability

Nature Food (2023) doi: 10.1038/s43016-023-00771-4

Publication

M. Kaleta, et al.

Diabetes incidence in Austria: The role of famines on diabetes and related NCDs

Helyion, Volume 9, Issue 7, July 2023, e17570

Publication

D. R. Lo Sardo, S. Thurner, et al.

Systematic population-wide ecological analysis of regional variability in disease prevalence

Heliyon 9(4) (2023) e15377

Publication

R. Prieto-Curiel, J. E. Patino, B. Anderson

Scaling of the morphology of African cities

PNAS 120 (9) (2023) e2214254120