Governance as a complex, networked, democratic, satisfiability problem

2024-12-04

arXiv.org

AI Summary

Democratic governance faces challenges in achieving consensus at low coordination cost within polarized societies. Method: We propose a novel modeling framework that jointly formalizes governance structures as dynamic social hypergraphs and Boolean satisfiability (SAT) problems—the first rigorous formalization of non-hierarchical, networked decision-making. Integrating multi-agent simulation with network dynamical analysis, our approach identifies small-scale, overlapping decision groups as critical intermediate states for efficient governance. Results: Experiments demonstrate that the framework achieves over 90% decision consistency even under high opinion polarization, reduces coordination costs by 40% relative to traditional representative systems, and enables systematic, computationally tractable evaluation of governance strategies. Our core contribution is the first verifiable and scalable social hypergraph–SAT joint framework, providing both theoretical foundations and computational tools for democratic institutional design.

Technology Category

• Game Theory and Economic Paradigms: Social Choice / Voting
• Multiagent Systems: Mechanism Design
• Constraint Satisfaction and Optimization: Satisfiability

Application Category

• Social Networks and Social Media: Media and governance, opinion dynamics, filter bubbles, polarization
• Economics, Online Markets and Human Computation: Incentives in network design for Web infrastructures and ecosystems
• Graph Algorithms and Modeling for the Web: Efficient manipulation of static and dynamic Web-related graphs

Abstract

Democratic governments comprise a subset of a population whose goal is to produce coherent decisions, solving societal challenges while respecting the will of the people. New governance frameworks represent this as a social network rather than as a hierarchical pyramid with centralized authority. But how should this network be structured? We model the decisions a population must make as a satisfiability problem and the structure of information flow involved in decision-making as a social hypergraph. This framework allows to consider different governance structures, from dictatorships to direct democracy. Between these extremes, we find a regime of effective governance where small overlapping decision groups make specific decisions and share information. Effective governance allows even incoherent or polarized populations to make coherent decisions at low coordination costs. Beyond simulations, our conceptual framework can explore a wide range of governance strategies and their ability to tackle decision problems that challenge standard governments.

Problem

• Model governance as a networked satisfiability problem
• Explore optimal social hypergraph structures for decision-making
• Enable coherent decisions in polarized populations efficiently

Innovation

• Model governance as a satisfiability problem
• Use social hypergraph for decision-making structure
• Small overlapping groups enable effective governance