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COMPLEX SYSTEMS

From ferromagnets to electoral instability

Nature Physics volume 16, pages 125–126 (2020)Cite this article

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An electoral model predicts that polarized and alienated voters lead to unstable elections, like phase transitions in an Ising model. Such physics-inspired models may help political scientists devise electoral reforms to quench instability.

The authors first conceptualize negative representation: as a potential voter moves increasingly to the left (or right) of all electoral choices, abstention becomes an increasingly attractive alternative to the candidates because it provides the same utility as voting for an unattractive candidate. The perverse outcome of the voter’s abstention is that it runs the risk of helping the other side win. That is to say, in presence of negative representation “the election outcome is inversely sensitive to changes in those opinions.”

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  1. Department of Political Science, Auburn University, Auburn, AL, USA

    Soren Jordan

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  1. Soren Jordan
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Correspondence to Soren Jordan.

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Jordan, S. From ferromagnets to electoral instability. Nat. Phys. 16, 125–126 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41567-019-0761-8

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