APPLICATION OF THE THEORY OF SELF-ORGANIZED CRITICALITY TO THE STUDY OF ELECTORAL BEHAVIOR

Abstract

The article is devoted to methodological problems associated with the application of the theory of self-organized criticality (SOC) to political processes. The author considers the dynamics of electoral preferences in the elections of US representatives in different states from 1958 to 2016. The purpose of the study is to verify whether the hypothesis of Japanese researchers I. Shimada and T. Koyama can be extended to the United States. The hypothesis is that the detection of pink noise (an attribute of SOC) in the time series of electoral activity can be a good indicator to identify the political and transformational potential of the society. The author shows that voters’ preferences changed in pink noise mode in some states. This gives reason to build assumptions about possible avalanche-like jumps in electoral behavior in the future.