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AbstractThis article is based on my talk at the 2019 International System Dynamics Conference on the occasion of receiving the Jay. W. Forrester Award for the article, "Structural dominance analysis of large and stochastic models" (System Dynamics Review 2016, 32(1): 26–51). I summarize here the history of the research project that led to the award‐winning article. I present the evolution of the ideas in a non‐technical way that develops the intuition for how eigenvalue elasticity analysis works and highlights the power of its explanations. I discuss what I believe to be the main benefits of structural dominance analysis and address the major criticisms that have been raised against it, and I close by reflecting on why I believe the capability to formally establish links between structure and behavior will become more salient in a context that pushes for larger models and demands higher standards of evidence.© 2020 System Dynamics Society

Bei den bisherigen Studien zu Montenegros politischem System lag der Schwerpunkt meist auf die extrem lange Regierungsdominanz der Demokratischen Partei der Sozialisten (DPS), wenig Aufmerksamkeit hingegen wurde den Oppositionsparteien in diesem kompetitiv-autoritären Regime zuteil. Diese Masterarbeit versucht diese Lücke mit einer Fallstudie zu schließen, die erforscht wie haben sich die Strategien politischer Oppositionsparteien auf die Dominanz der DPS im unabhängigen Montenegro ausgewirkt. Sie beginnt mit einer Analyse, wie DPS den Wettbewerb seit den ersten Mehrparteienwahlen manipulierte und damit bei Wahlen, im Parlament und in der Staatsführung Dominanz etablierte und festigte. Untersucht wird, wie nicht-regierende politische Parteien ihre Opposition ausdrückten, indem ihre strategischen Verhaltensweisen mit anderen kompetitiv-autoritären Regimen verglichen wird (z.B. Rekrutierung von Aktivist*innen, "Regierungsspaltung", Koalitionsbildung und Vertrauen auf Amtsinhaber auf lokaler Ebene). Die Analyse zeigt, dass die Oppositionsparteien in Montenegro kompetitiv zueinander sind, ihre Ressourcen und Bemühungen nicht gegen den Machtinhaber vereinen und als eine von externen Faktoren oder internen DPS-Spaltungen abhängige Alternative agieren. Weniger Fragmentierung, sondern endloser inner-oppositioneller Wettbewerb stellt das größte Problem oppositioneller Strategien im unabhängigen Montenegro dar: Das hat ihre Glaubwürdigkeit bei Wähler*innen und anderen Akteur*innen untergraben und die Fähigkeit aus vergangenen Fehlern zu lernen, scheint begrenzt zu sein. Somit liefert diese Masterarbeit auch Evidenz, dass die Strategien der Oppositionsparteien einen starken Beitrag für die Dominanz der DPS, in allen Bereichen des Parteiwettbewerbs, geliefert haben. ; Much research on Montenegros political system focuses on the outstanding longevity in office of the Democratic Party of Socialists (DPS), often granting limited attention to opposition parties role within such competitive authoritarian regime. This thesis aims at filling the gap with a case study addressing how political party opposition strategies impacted on DPS dominance in post-independence Montenegro. It starts by reviewing how DPS skewed competition to establish and maintain dominance from the first multiparty elections within the electoral, parliamentary, and executive arenas of party competition. It then looks into how non-governing political parties expressed their opposition after independence, through the analysis of their strategic behaviour in comparison with successful opposition strategies from other competitive authoritarian regimes (i.e. activist recruitment, creation of a 'regime cleavage, coalition building, and reliance on local level office). It finds opposition parties in Montenegro are engaged in competing against each other rather than pooling resources and efforts against the dominant, behaving as alternation in office solely depended upon external actors or DPS internal divisions. Rather than fragmentation, ceaseless intra-opposition competition represents the crucial problem when it comes to political party opposition strategies in post-independence Montenegro: it undermined their credibility in the eyes of the electorate and other actors, as well as evidenced limited ability to learn from past mistakes. Thus, this thesis points to political party opposition strategies as crucial in accounting for continued DPS dominance, facilitating its reproduction in all the arenas of party competition. ; submitted by Alberto Sartori ; Zusammenfassungen in Deutsch und Englisch ; Karl-Franzens-Universität Graz, Masterarbeit, 2019 ; (VLID)4499141

La culture se constitue en stocks de références autorisant la conscience d'appartenance commune, le marquage de différenciation d'avec les autres. Elle permet de cultiver ses alliances, ses affinités et ses haines. Il y a des cultures de guerre. Celles-ci appuient-elles ou dégradent-elles les hautes cultures dont elles sont l'expression ? Une culture n'est-elle pas elle-même un instrument de dominance ?

Abstract
In real-world marketplaces, one may encounter an alternative that is inferior to another one in the assortment. While the presence of such seemingly irrelevant inferior alternatives should ostensibly have no influence on consumers' decisions, an extensive literature using stylized lab experiments has found that, surprisingly, their presence matters. Specifically, the dominance effect suggests that the presence of an inferior alternative shifts consumer's preferences toward the alternative made to be superior. However, null results in some recent lab studies and a lack of real-world evidence call into question whether, when, and how the effect exists. In this work, we find clear evidence that dominance matters in the wild. We also identify an important moderator for the dominance effect—preference uncertainty—and test it in both a real-world marketplace for digital freelance services and a lab experiment. Further, we find evidence for additional moderators that help explain how the effect works, including the count of dominated alternatives and the magnitude of dominance, consistent with a perceptual mechanism. This work is the first to use consequential field data to shed light on when and why the dominance effects occur, with implications for marketers, choice architects, user interface designers, and policymakers.