Prof. Dr. Jan Ryckebusch (U Ghent): Going interdisciplinary: structural balance from the physics perspective

Structural balance is a prevailing theory for understanding the creation and dynamics of active relationships (friendly or hostile) in socioeconomic networks. The methodology of statistical physics offers opportunities to view structural balance from a different angle and even extend it. A physics-based model for structural balance is proposed. It is suitable for empirical analysis of political networks and allows to uncover generative mechanisms. It is tested on a dataset for the relationships between alliances in a massively multi-player on-line game and on real-world data for the relationships between countries during the Cold War era.