Using Mathematics to Understand Politics

Using Mathematics to Understand Politics

    Presenter(s)

    Michal Sotak, Luke Walz

    Comments

    10:45-12:00, Kennedy Union Ballroom

    Description

    Political parties gain and lose members everyday. One way to mathematically depict how the amount of members in a political party change over time is using differential equations. First, we can assume that there are two main political parties that people from a certain population will choose to be a part of. We can depict the amount of people going in and coming out of these two political parties with a system of differential equations using an epidemiological approach. Using MATLAB, the change in membership of political parties and the best way for political parties to gain members over a long period of time can be explored. The results from the analysis of the rates of political party membership show that parties succeed best in the long run when holding ideologies that draw new members into the party while simultaneously catering to current members. We use Runge-Kutta methods (MATLAB built-in solver) for the numerical solution of the model.

    Publication Date

    4-23-2025

    Project Designation

    Course Project - MTH 219 04

    Primary Advisor

    Muhammad Usman

    Primary Advisor's Department

    Mathematics

    Keywords

    Stander Symposium, College of Arts and Sciences

    Institutional Learning Goals

    Scholarship

    Using Mathematics to Understand Politics

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