How Stable is Democracy ? Suggestions from Artificial Social Networks
Figure 10 . Multiplied measures of frequency and amplitude : a societal hazard map for opinion volatility .
is strong and obvious : the frequency of volatile opinion changes increases with the anti-democratic character of communication networks .
Figure 8 tells only half the story , however : these graphs show the frequency of volatility but not the amplitude . When a 5 % change produces a more than 7.5 % reaction , what is the size of that reaction ? What percentage of the network changes beliefs as a result ? Across the same array , the answer to this second question appears in Figure 9 .
Here results are even more striking . Networks democratic in the sense of having low preferential attachment
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