Voting models in random networks

Abstract

crucial problem of Social Sciences is under what conditions agreement, or disagreement, emerge in a network of interacting agents. This topic has application in many contexts, including business and marketing decisions, with potential impact on information and technological networks. In this paper we consider a particular model of interaction between a group of individuals connected through a network of acquaintances. In the first model, a node waits an exponentially time with parameter one, and when it expires it chooses one of its neighbors' at random and adopts its decision. In the second one, the node chooses the opinion which is the most adopted by its neighbors (hence, majority rule). We show how different updating rule of the agent' state lead to different emerging patterns, namely, agreement and disagreement. In addition, in the case of agreement, we provide bounds on the time to convergence for various types of graphs.