Extended Landscape Theory for Organizing Knowledge of Alliances

摘要

In this paper, we extended the Landscape theory by using fuzzy set theory for alliance analysis. Fuzzification of the theory may allow us to analyze a variety of aggregation processes in political, economic, and social problems in a more flexible manner. Particularly, we reformulate Axelrod and Bennett's Landscape theory by using a fuzzy partition instead of a crisp partition. We then develop a genetic based algorithm for finding a near-optimized solution for the so-called energy function defined on the space of all fuzzy configurations. Numerous attempts have been made by scholars to show the alliance in simulation. The simulation results for the problems of the international alignment of the Second World War in Europe and the coalition formation in standard-setting alliances in the case of UNIX operating system are comparable with those given by the original theory. The theory has potential for application to coalitions of business firms, political parties in parliaments, social networks, social cleavages in democracies, and organizational structures.