In this chapter, we assess recent contributions of computational models to the study of politics. We focus primarily on agent-based models developed by economists and political scientists. These models address collective action problems, questions related to institutional design and performance,...

We study the relationship between voters' preferences and the emergence of party platforms in two-party democratic elections with adaptive parties. In the model, preferences of voters and the opposition party's platform determine an electoral landscape on which the challenging party must...

We present a model of two-party competition that relates the distribution of voters' preferences to the formation of the electoral landscape upon which parties choose issue positions. The two parties in the model tend to converge to similar positions on some issues and diverge on other issues,...

This paper proposes a unified framework that integrates the traditional index-based approach and the competing non-cooperative approach to power analysis. It rests on a quantifiable notion of ex post power as the (counter-factual) sensitivity of the expected or observed outcome to individual...

Nondeterministic models of collective choice posit convergence among the outcomes of simple-majority decisions. The object of this research is to estimate the extent of convergence of majority choice under different procedural conditions. The paper reports results from a computer simulation of...