All issues

A previously developed model that describes the dynamics of social tension in a society divided into two groups: the elite and the people was considered. This model took into account the impact of economic situation changes and the elite–people interaction. The model has been modified by including in the equation describing the tension of the people, a term that takes into account the adaptation of the people to the current situation.

The model coefficients estimation is an important task, the solution of which allows obtaining information about the nature of the interaction between elite and people. We believe that the solution of the system of model equations with optimal coefficients is closest to the values of the indicator characterizing social tension. We used the normalized level of homicide rate as an indicator of social tension.

The model contains seven coefficients. Two coefficients characterizing the influence of economic situation changes on elite and people are taken equal to each other and the same for all countries. We obtained their estimations using a simplified model that takes into account only the change in the economic situation and allows an analytical solution.

The Bayesian approach was used to estimate the remaining five coefficients of model for post-Soviet countries. The prior probability densities of the four coefficients for all countries under consideration were taken to be the same. The prior probability density of fifth coefficient was considered to depend on the regime of government (authoritarian or «transitional»). We assumed that the calculated tension matches with the corresponding indicator of tension in cases where the difference between them does not exceed 5%.

The calculations showed that for the post-Soviet countries, a good coincidence was obtained between the calculated values of the people tension and the normalized level of homicide rate. The coincidence is satisfactory only on average.

The following main results was obtained at the work: under the influence of some «significant» events in 40% of post-Soviet countries, there was a rapid change in the nature of interaction between the elite and the people; regional feature have some influence on the elite–people interaction; the type of government does not significantly affect the elite–people interaction; the method for assessing the stability of the country by the value of the model coefficients is proposed.

The background social strain of a society can be quantitatively estimated using various statistical indicators. Mathematical models, allowing to forecast the dynamics of social strain, are successful in describing various social processes. If the number of interacting groups is small, the dynamics of the corresponding indicators can be modelled with a system of ordinary differential equations. The increase in the number of interacting components leads to the growth of complexity, which makes the analysis of such models a challenging task. A continuous social stratification model can be considered as a result of the transition from a discrete number of interacting social groups to their continuous distribution in some finite interval. In such a model, social strain naturally spreads locally between neighbouring groups, while in reality, the social elite influences the whole society via news media, and the Internet allows non-local interaction between social groups. These factors, however, can be taken into account to some extent using the term of the model, describing negative external influence on the society. In this paper, we develop a continuous social stratification model, describing the dynamics of two societies connected through migration. We assume that people migrate from the social group of donor society with the highest strain level to poorer social layers of the acceptor society, transferring the social strain at the same time. We assume that all model parameters are constants, which is a realistic assumption for small societies only. By using the finite volume method, we construct the spatial discretization for the problem, capable of reproducing finite propagation speed of social strain. We verify the discretization by comparing the results of numerical simulations with the exact solutions of the auxiliary non-linear diffusion equation. We perform the numerical analysis of the proposed model for different values of model parameters, study the impact of migration intensity on the stability of acceptor society, and find the destabilization conditions. The results, obtained in this work, can be used in further analysis of the model in the more realistic case of inhomogeneous coefficients.

In this paper we consider a new modification of the discrete version of Mikhailov’s ‘power–society’ model, previously proposed by the author. This modification includes social-economical dynamics and corruption of the system similarly to continuous ‘power–society–economics–corruption’ model but is based on a stochastic cellular automaton describing the dynamics of power distribution in a hierarchy. This new version is founded on previously proposed ‘power–society’ system modeling cellular automaton, its cell state space enriched with variables corresponding to population, economic production, production assets volume and corruption level. The social-economical structure of the model is inherited from Solow and deterministic continuous ‘power–society–economics–corruption’ models. At the same time the new model is flexible, allowing to consider regional differentiation in all social and economical dynamics parameters, to use various production and demography models and to account for goods transit between the regions. A simulation system was built, including three power hierarchy levels, five regions and 100 municipalities. and a number of numerical experiments were carried out. This research yielded results showing specific changes of the dynamics in power distribution in hierarchy when corruption level increases. While corruption is zero (similar to the previous version of the model) the power distribution in hierarchy asymptotically tends to one of stationary states. If the corruption level increases substantially, volume of power in the system is subjected to irregular oscillations, and only much later tends to a stationary value. The meaning of these results can be interpreted as the fact that the stability of power hierarchy decreases when corruption level goes up.

The paper considers the application of swarm intelligence technology to build agent-based simulation models. As an example, a minimal model is constructed illustrating the influence of information influences on the rules of behavior of agents in the simplest model of competition between two populations, whose agents perform the simplest task of transferring a resource from a mobile source to their territory. The algorithm for the movement of agents in the model space is implemented on the basis of the classical particle swarm algorithm. Agents have a life cycle, that is, the processes of birth and death are taken into account. The model takes into account information processes that determine the target functions of the behavior of newly appeared agents. These processes (training and poaching) are determined by information influences from populations. Under certain conditions, a third population arises in the agent system. Agents of such a population informatively influence agents of other populations in a certain radius around themselves, changing.

As a result of the conducted simulation experiments, it was shown that the following final states are realized in the system: displacement of a new population by others, coexistence of a new population and other populations and the absence of such a population. It has been shown that with an increase in the radius of influence of agents, the population with changed rules of behavior displaces all others. It is also shown that in the case of a hard-to-access resource, the strategy of luring agents of a competing population is more profitable.

Simulation model of corruption in hierarchical systems which takes into account individual strategies of elements and collective behavior of large groups is proposed. Evolution of various characteristics like level of corruption or ratio of corrupted elements and their dependence on external parameters are discussed. The effectiveness of various anticorruptional strategies is examined by means of numeric analysis.

The research is devoted to the problem of the use of social networks as a tool of the illegal activity and as a source of information that could be dangerous to society. The article presents the structure of the multiagent system with which a social network groups could be clustered according to the criteria uniquely defines a group as a destructive. The agents’ of the system clustering algorithm is described.

We comsider a model of the dynamics a political system of several parties, accompanied and controlled by the growth of social tension. A system of nonlinear ordinary differential equations is proposed with respect to fractions and an additional scalar variable characterizing the magnitude of tension in society the change of each party is proportional to the current value multiplied by a coefficient that consists of an influx of novice, a flow from competing parties, and a loss due to the growth of social tension. The change in tension is made up of party contributions and own relaxation. The number of parties is fixed, there are no mechanisms in the model for combining existing or the birth of new parties.

To study of possible scenarios of the dynamic processes of the model we derive an approach based on the selection of conditions under which this problem belongs to the class of cosymmetric systems. For the case of two parties, it is shown that in the system under consideration may have two families of equilibria, as well as a family of limit cycles. The existence of cosymmetry for a system of differential equations is ensured by the presence of additional constraints on the parameters, and in this case, the emergence of continuous families of stationary and nonstationary solutions is possible. To analyze the scenarios of cosymmetry breaking, an approach based on the selective function is applied. In the case of one political party, there is no multistability, one stable solution corresponds to each set of parameters. For the case of two parties, it is shown that in the system under consideration may have two families of equilibria, as well as a family of limit cycles. The results of numerical experiments demonstrating the destruction of the families and the implementation of various scenarios leading to the stabilization of the political system with the coexistence of both parties or to the disappearance of one of the parties, when part of the population ceases to support one of the parties and becomes indifferent are presented.

This model can be used to predict the inter-party struggle during the election campaign. In this case necessary to take into account the dependence of the coefficients of the system on time.

The article considers a bilinear model of the influence of external disturbances on the stability of the structure of social systems. Approaches to the third-party stabilization of the initial system consisting of two groups are investigated — by reducing the initial system to a linear system with uncertain parameters and using the results of the theory of linear dynamic games with a quadratic criterion. The influence of the coefficients of the proposed model of the social system and the control parameters on the quality of the system stabilization is analyzed with the help of computer experiments. It is shown that the use of a minimax strategy by a third party in the form of feedback control leads to a relatively close convergence of the population of the second group (excited by external influences) to an acceptable level, even with unfavorable periodic dynamic perturbations.

The influence of one of the key coefficients in the criterion $(\varepsilon)$ used to compensate for the effects of external disturbances (the latter are present in the linear model in the form of uncertainty) on the quality of system stabilization is investigated. Using Z-transform, it is shown that a decrease in the coefficient $\varepsilon$ should lead to an increase in the values of the sum of the squares of the control. The computer calculations carried out in the article also show that the improvement of the convergence of the system structure to the equilibrium level with a decrease in this coefficient is achieved due to sharp changes in control in the initial period, which may induce the transition of some members of the quiet group to the second, excited group.

The article also examines the influence of the values of the model coefficients that characterize the level of social tension on the quality of management. Calculations show that an increase in the level of social tension (all other things being equal) leads to the need for a significant increase in the third party's stabilizing efforts, as well as the value of control at the transition period.

The results of the statistical modeling carried out in the article show that the calculated feedback controls successfully compensate for random disturbances on the social system (both in the form of «white» noise, and of autocorrelated disturbances).

The paper presents the results of research on the creation of a mathematical model of moral choice based on the development of the approach proposed by V. A. Lefebvre. Unlike V. A. Lefebvre, who considered a very speculative situation of a subject’s moral choice between abstract “good” and “evil” under pressure from the outside world, taking into account the subjective perception of this pressure by the subject, our study considers a more mundane and practically significant situation. The case is considered when the subject, when making decisions, is guided by his individual perception of the outside world (which may be distorted, for example, due to external purposeful informational influence on the subject and manipulation of his consciousness), and “good” and “evil” are not abstract, but are conditioned by a value system adopted in a particular society under consideration and tied to a specific ideology/religion, which may be different for different societies.

As a result of the conducted research, a basic mathematical model has been developed, and special cases of its application have been considered. Some patterns related to moral choice are revealed, and their formal description is given. In particular, the situation of manipulation of consciousness is considered in the language of the model, the law of reducing the “morality” of a society consisting of so-called free subjects (that is, those who strive to act in accordance with their intentions and correspond in their actions to the image of their “I”) is formulated.

The paper considers the basic model of competitive interactions and its use for the analysis and description of social processes. The peculiarity of the model is that it describes the interaction of several competing actors, while actors can vary the strategy of their actions, in particular, form coalitions to jointly counter a common enemy. As a result of modeling, various modes of competitive interaction were identified, their classification was conducted, and their features were described. In the course of the study, the attention is paid to the so-called “rough” (according to A.A. Andronov) cases of the implementation of competitive interaction, which until now have rarely been considered in the scientific literature, but are quite common in real life. Using a basic mathematical model, the conditions for the implementation of various modes of competitive interactions are considered, the conditions for the transition from one mode to another are determined, examples of the implementation of these modes in the economy, social and political life are given. It is shown that with a relatively low level of competition, which is non-antagonistic in nature, competition can lead to an increase in the activity of interacting actors and to overall economic growth. Moreover, in the presence of expanding resource opportunities (as long as such opportunities remain), this growth may have a hyperbolic character. With a decrease in resource capabilities and increased competition, there is a transition to an oscillatory mode, when weaker actors unite to jointly counteract stronger ones. With a further decrease in resource opportunities and increased competition, there is a transition to the formation of stable hierarchical structures. At the same time, the model shows that at a certain moment there is a loss of stability, the system becomes “rough” according to A.A. Andronov and sensitive to fluctuations in parameter changes. As a result, the existing hierarchies may collapse and be replaced by new ones. With a further increase in the intensity of competition, the actor-leader completely suppresses his opponents and establishes monopolism. Examples from economic, social, and political life are given, illustrating the patterns identified on the basis of modeling using the basic model of competition. The obtained results can be used in the analysis, modeling and forecasting of socioeconomic and political processes.