2025/02/25 by Serge Galam, Galam, Serge · 1 citation
Economics, Econometrics and Finance · Physics and Astronomy · #Complex Systems and Time Series Analysis #FOS: Physical sciences #Opinion Dynamics and Social Influence #Physics and Society (physics.soc-ph) #Theoretical and Computational Physics
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2502.18665
openalex publication_date 2025/02/25 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
I study the conditions under which a democratic dynamics of a public debate drives a Minority-to-Majority transition. A landscape of the opinion dynamics is thus built using the Galam Majority Model (GMM) in a 3-dimensional parameter space for three different sizes r=2, 3, 4 of local discussing groups. The related parameters are (p0, k, x), the respective proportions of initial agents supporting opinion A, unavowed tie prejudices breaking in favor of opinion A, and contrarians. Combining k and x yields unexpected and counterintuitive results. In most part of the landscape the final outcome is predetermined with a single attractor dynamics independently of the initial supports for the competing opinions. Large domains of (k, x) values are found to lead an initial minority to turn majority democratically without any external influence. A new alternating regime is also unveiled in narrow ranges of extreme proportions of contrarians. The findings indicate that the expected democratic character of free opinion dynamics is indeed rarely satisfied. The actual values of (k, x) are found to be instrumental to predetermine the final winning opinion. Therefore, the conflicting challenge for the predetermined opinion to loose, is to modify these values appropriately to become the winner. However, developing a model which could help manipulating public opinion rises ethical questions. The issue is discussed in the conclusion.