dorsal/arxiv
View SchemaScaling and universality in proportional elections
| Authors | Santo Fortunato, Claudio Castellano |
|---|---|
| Categories | |
| ArXiv ID | physics/0612140 |
| URL | https://arxiv.org/abs/physics/0612140 |
| DOI | 10.1103/PhysRevLett.99.138701 |
| Journal | Physical Review Letters 99, 138701 (2007) |
Abstract
A most debated topic of the last years is whether simple statistical physics models can explain collective features of social dynamics. A necessary step in this line of endeavour is to find regularities in data referring to large scale social phenomena, such as scaling and universality. We show that, in proportional elections, the distribution of the number of votes received by candidates is a universal scaling function, identical in different countries and years. This finding reveals the existence in the voting process of a general microscopic dynamics that does not depend on the historical, political and/or economical context where voters operate. A simple dynamical model for the behaviour of voters, similar to a branching process, reproduces the universal distribution.
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"abstract": "A most debated topic of the last years is whether simple statistical physics\nmodels can explain collective features of social dynamics. A necessary step in\nthis line of endeavour is to find regularities in data referring to large scale\nsocial phenomena, such as scaling and universality. We show that, in\nproportional elections, the distribution of the number of votes received by\ncandidates is a universal scaling function, identical in different countries\nand years. This finding reveals the existence in the voting process of a\ngeneral microscopic dynamics that does not depend on the historical, political\nand/or economical context where voters operate. A simple dynamical model for\nthe behaviour of voters, similar to a branching process, reproduces the\nuniversal distribution.",
"arxiv_id": "physics/0612140",
"authors": [
"Santo Fortunato",
"Claudio Castellano"
],
"categories": [
"physics.soc-ph"
],
"doi": "10.1103/PhysRevLett.99.138701",
"journal_ref": "Physical Review Letters 99, 138701 (2007)",
"title": "Scaling and universality in proportional elections",
"url": "https://arxiv.org/abs/physics/0612140"
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