This book uses a computational social science approach to analyze government formation and survival in parliamentary democracies. It models 'functionally rational' politicians who attack complex problems using heuristics and also develops artificial intelligence algorithms which relentlessly learn how best to 'win' the political game.
Simple, elegant, and powerful, tools are available in user-friendly, free software to help design, build, and run models of social interactions, even on the most basic laptop. Focusing on a well-known model of housing segregation, this Element sets out the fundamentals of what is now known as 'agent based modeling'.
In this Element we develop: stochastic models, which add a crucial element of uncertainty to human interaction; models of human interactions structured by social networks; and 'evolutionary' models in which agents using more effective decision rules are more likely to survive and prosper than others.
"The legacy of Rana Plaza is increased consumer awareness of the global apparel industry's serious environmental and human rights challenges. Fixing Fashion exposes the worst of the excesses, while simultaneously celebrating the entrepreneurs and stakeholders driving meaningful change. Written by an industry insider, this compelling manifesto challenges each of us to take responsibility for the hidden cost of our clothes"--Provided by publisher.
The fourth edition of this text continues to unite the theoretical analysis of representative government and its application to the real world of politics--with a unique focus on the core features of representative government as they manifest themselves across the whole of modern Europe. The book identifies and examines broad themes and patterns in the politics of the whole of “modern Europe†--not, as some other books do, only with regard to a handful of often atypical countries. Europe has been transformed by the dramatic democratization of many of the former Communist states of central and eastern Europe; reflecting this change, the fourth edition has also been transformed: country coverage has been extended to include all of the eight post-communist states that are now members of the EU, and discussion of politics in these countries has been integrated into the main body of text and tables. The “modern Europe†discussed in this book is thus the Europe that came into being in May 2004, and the text reflects the ways in which thinking about representative government has changed as a result of these dramatic developments.
Cabinets and Legislatures in Parliamentary Democracies
The book delves into the mechanics of parliamentary democracy, emphasizing how elected representatives form and sustain governments through strategic interactions among parties. It presents a theoretical model to illustrate this process, exploring how governments are created, maintained, or replaced following resignations or votes of no confidence. The authors derive empirical hypotheses from their model and validate them using data from postwar Europe, providing a comprehensive analysis of the dynamics within parliamentary systems.