Structural Balance and Signed International Relations

Abstract

We use balance theoretic ideas to study the dynamics of the international system of nations in a network of signed relations from 1946 through 1999. Using the Correlates of War data for this period, we apply pre-specified signed blockmodeling to characterize the fundamental structure of this network. Even though the system expanded greatly with many ties being created and/or destroyed, the basic structure remained the same but with new positions being added over time. The blockmodels generated temporal measures of imbalance, as did the counts of imbalanced triples. Regardless of using the line index of imbalance or the number of imbalanced 3-cycles, the results provided decisive evidence contradicting the balance theoretic hypothesis of signed networks moving towards balanced states. Structural balance theory remains very useful by pointing to the more important study of how and why signed networks move towards and away from balance at different points over time. Some major methodological problems for studying signed networks, regardless of whether they involve nations or human actors, were raised and addressed. Proposals for future research are suggested for modeling and understanding the dynamics of signed networks.

Social stability and extended social balance—Quantifying the role of inactive links in social networks

“…Unbalanced [+ + −] and [− − −] triads, however, are a key ingredient in real-life political networks. Balance theory has found applications in many branches of sciences including psychology [1], studies of international networks [3,4,5,6,7], sociology [8,9,10,11,12] and ecology [13].…”

“…Unbalanced [+ + −] and [− − −] triads, however, are a key ingredient in real-life political networks. Balance theory has found applications in many branches of sciences including psychology [1], studies of international networks [3,4,5,6,7], sociology [8,9,10,11,12] and ecology [13].As balance theory introduces correlations between the edge attributes in triads, in a physics framework [14,15,16,17] it maps onto a system with predominant three-edge interactions. Associating the existence of unbalanced triads to the occurrence of a non-vanishing excitation energy, the principles of social balance can be mapped onto a model with variations in an energy landscape.…”

Partitioning Signed Networks

“…This implies there is no principled way for selecting a value of α and hence a partition. This issue was noted by Doreian and Mrvar [20]. It can be called 'the alpha problem' which amounts to understanding the interplay of the number of positive and negative links in a signed network, the shape of the criterion function, and the role of α in determining partitions.…”

“…In short, modularity cannot be simply applied to signed networks, as the results are inconsistent with the correct partition (cf. [20]). Hence, modularity needs to be corrected in some way to account for the presence of negative links for it to be useful for signed networks.…”

Visualizing Structural Balance in Signed Networks

“…Signed networks are simple yet informative network representations in which edges are annotated as positive or negative [11]. They are applied in a large variety of domains in which interactions between entities are either friendly or antagonistic, e.g., international relations [9], and online social media and social networks [21]. The theory of structural balance has established as the standard for studying, from a theoretical standpoint in sociology and psychology, the formation of opinions in both individuals and social groups.…”