Sociophysics: A review of Galam models

TL;DR

This review paper discusses Galam's sociophysics models, highlighting their connections to physical models, novel results, and successful predictions of political events, aiming to establish sociophysics as a predictive science.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive review of Galam's sociophysics models, categorizing them, comparing to physical models, and discussing their predictive successes and future challenges.

Findings

Models predicted major political events like French elections and referendums.

Numerous counterintuitive results in social and political contexts.

Framework shows promise for predictive sociophysics.

Abstract

We review a series of models of sociophysics introduced by Galam and Galam et al in the last 25 years. The models are divided in five different classes, which deal respectively with democratic voting in bottom up hierarchical systems, decision making, fragmentation versus coalitions, terrorism and opinion dynamics. For each class the connexion to the original physical model and technics are outlined underlining both the similarities and the differences. Emphasis is put on the numerous novel and counterintuitive results obtained with respect to the associated social and political framework. Using these models several major real political events were successfully predicted including the victory of the French extreme right party in the 2000 first round of French presidential elections, the voting at fifty - fifty in several democratic countries (Germany, Italy, Mexico), and the victory of the no to the 2005 French referendum on the European constitution. The perspectives and the challenges to make sociophysics a predictive solid field of science are discussed.