Simulating the effect of nepotism on political risk taking and social unrest

Nepotism has been the primary influence on political behavior throughout human history. Despite the spread of democracy in the 20th century, nepotistic regimes have hardly disappeared. Nepotism heavily influences political activity throughout the developing world, Middle East, and central Asia where family ties are essential for gaining access to power, state resources, and privileges. Rebelling against such nepotistic regimes is difficult and risky. RiskTaker is an agent-based model we developed for testing the influences of various social forces on risk taking behavior, including the formulation of rebellious coalitions. We use RiskTaker to examine the influence of nepotism on the distribution of wealth and social status. Nepotism heavily skews the distribution of wealth and status, leading to the formation of opposing coalitions and exacerbating social unrest.This paper was tied for Best Paper, NAACSOS (North American Association for Computational Social and Organizational Science) Annual Conference 2005, June 26–28, Notre Dame. Robert Sedlmeyer, Department of Computer Science, Indiana University – Purdue University, Fort Wayne provided programming for the RiskTaker model. Lawrence A. Kuznar is a professor of anthropology and director of the Decision Sciences and Theory Institute at Indiana University—Purdue University, Fort Wayne. He has conducted fieldwork among Aymara Indians in Andean Peru and the Navajo of the American southwest. His research interests include computer modeling, theories of risk taking and conflict, terrorism, social evolution, and scientific epistemology. He has authored articles in Ecological Economics (with W. Frederick), Current Anthropology, American Anthropologist, Mathematical Anthropology and Culture Theory and Journal of Anthropological Research, and published two books (Awatimarka Harcourt Brace, 1995 and Reclaiming a Scientific Anthropology Altamira Press, 1997) and two edited volumes. William Frederick has served as a faculty member in the departments of mathematical sciences and the department of computer sciences at Indiana University—Purdue University, Fort Wayne since 1979. His primary interests include mathematical modeling, game theory, and genetic algorithms.