Abstract
There has been longstanding interest in the evolution of positive and negative relationships among countries. An interdisciplinary field of study, Structural Balance Theory, has developed on the dynamics of such appraisal systems. However, the advancement of research in the field has been impeded by the lack of longitudinal empirical data on large-scale networks. We construct the networks of international amicable and hostile relations occurring in specific time-periods in order to study the global evolution of the network of such international appraisals. Here we present an empirical evidence on the alignment of Structural Balance Theory with the evolution of the structure of this network, and a model of the probabilistic micro-dynamics of the alterations of international appraisals during the period 1995-2018. Also remarkably, we find that the trajectory of the Frobenius norm of sequential transition probabilities, which govern the evolution of international appraisals among nations, dramatically stabilizes.
Highlights
There has been longstanding interest in the evolution of positive and negative relationships among countries
Appraisal networks may arise in small groups of individuals, in communities, or in very large-scale networks composed of collective actors that are organizations or nations with alliances and animosities
To investigate the evolution of the international appraisals, these data are disaggregated into time periods
Summary
The summation of balanced triads in the stationary distribution is >0.85 It appears that regardless of the definition of the period, the Markov model predicts our empirical finding of a network evolution toward structural balance. Our results show that the probability of transitions to and remaining in balanced states are statistically significant in every period over the 23+ year data span. This motivates us to apply a more holistic and time-varying Markov model in which the transition matrix can smoothly change and is learned via a convex optimization scheme (see “Methods” for details). This finding comports with the seminal study by Jackson and Nei[6] and its finding on stabilizing the international conflicts by the decrease of the number of wars among nations as the same rate as the increase in global trades
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