Bereiche | Tage | Auswahl | Suche | Aktualisierungen | Downloads | Hilfe

SOE: Fachverband Physik sozio-ökonomischer Systeme

SOE 6: Political Systems and Conflicts

SOE 6.1: Hauptvortrag

Dienstag, 18. März 2025, 14:00–14:30, H45

Analyzing Political Regime Stability Through the Diffusion Equation: Insights from V-Dem Data (1900-2021) — •Karoline Wiesner — University of Potsdam, Potsdam, Germany

Democratic stagnation and autocratic resurgence have marked the 21st century, raising questions about the stability of democracies and their implications for peace and prosperity. Utilizing the diffusion equation from statistical physics we provide firm evidence that democracy is the most stable regime type across the 20th and 21st centuries on average, surpassing the average life time of electoral autocracies. The latter also exhibit heightened susceptibility to sudden collapse. We explore these dynamics using the Diffusion Map dimensionality-reduction technique applied to V-Dem data (1900-2021). In this context, we will discuss some less explored mathematical aspects of the diffusion-map method, including its probabilistic interpretation and sensitivity to parameters and to the structure of the data. These recent results will be of interest, not least, to those wanting to apply the method to socio-economic data.

Wiesner, K., Bien, S., & Wilson, M. C. (2024). The principal components of electoral regimes: separating autocracies from pseudo-democracies. Royal Society Open Science, 11(10), 240262.

Pirker-Díaz, P., Wilson, M. C., Beier, S., & Wiesner, K. (2024). Unraveling 20th-century political regime dynamics using the physics of diffusion. arXiv preprint arXiv:2411.11484.

Keywords: Diffusion equation; Political science; Diffusion map; dimensionality-reduction; Political regime stability