2005. “Agent-Based Explanations for the Survival of Disagreement

Agent-based models can be used to explore the impact of micro-level theories of political inter-action on aggregate patterns in public opinion. We are interested in several theories about the conditions under which people interact with and respond to one another. In this report, our cen-tral question is this: under what conditions will diversity be preserved? We begin by contrasting some existing models of social networks and then proceed to several extensions of Robert Axelrod’s "culture model. " Different ideas about the conditions under which individuals inter-act with and respond to one another are explored. Results indicate that modifications in the part of the model that deals with exposure to political interaction do not have as large of an impact as changes in the way individuals adjust their opinion in response to input from others. 1The computer code and documentation for these models is available. For the latest versions, please chec