000152979 001__ 152979 000152979 005__ 20251017144551.0 000152979 0247_ $$2doi$$a10.1007/s00191-025-00895-9 000152979 0248_ $$2sideral$$a143466 000152979 037__ $$aART-2025-143466 000152979 041__ $$aeng 000152979 100__ $$0(orcid)0000-0003-3766-9157$$aAlmudi, Isabel$$uUniversidad de Zaragoza 000152979 245__ $$aThe evolutionary political economy of dichotomized societies 000152979 260__ $$c2025 000152979 5060_ $$aAccess copy available to the general public$$fUnrestricted 000152979 5203_ $$aReferendum practices and other forms of antagonistic political participation have become more commonplace in the last two decades. These practices have significant social and economic consequences and, as such, economic theory must study their development. In this work, we study the cases of binary political choices, encompassed in what we call the evolutionary political economy of dichotomized societies. We see the origins of these phenomena in certain streams of socio-political thought and analyze the conditions of their evolution. We also link our study with contributions to polarization research in socio-physics and mathematical sociology. Drawing on these fields, we present a new model that allows us to analyze these processes and obtain scenarios with different implications. Drawing on the model, we ask questions such as: can we determine specific conditions under which a referendum may end up truly reflecting the structural trend of public opinion? Are there situations in which dichotomized political processes may lead to surprising results? Can we characterize polarization as an emergent property of evolving political economies? Depending on specific parametric regimes, very different answers to these questions emerge. 000152979 536__ $$9info:eu-repo/grantAgreement/ES/AEI/PID2019-106822RB-I00$$9info:eu-repo/grantAgreement/ES/DGA/S40-20R$$9info:eu-repo/grantAgreement/ES/DGA/S40-23R$$9info:eu-repo/grantAgreement/ES/UZ/OTRI-2012-0369 000152979 540__ $$9info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess$$aby$$uhttps://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/deed.es 000152979 655_4 $$ainfo:eu-repo/semantics/article$$vinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion 000152979 700__ $$0(orcid)0000-0002-1246-6751$$aFatas-Villafranca, Francisco$$uUniversidad de Zaragoza 000152979 700__ $$aVázquez, Francisco J. 000152979 7102_ $$14000$$2415$$aUniversidad de Zaragoza$$bDpto. Análisis Económico$$cÁrea Fund. Análisis Económico 000152979 773__ $$g(2025), [34 pp.]$$pJ. evol. econ.$$tJournal of evolutionary economics$$x0936-9937 000152979 8564_ $$s2441038$$uhttps://zaguan.unizar.es/record/152979/files/texto_completo.pdf$$yVersión publicada 000152979 8564_ $$s1121195$$uhttps://zaguan.unizar.es/record/152979/files/texto_completo.jpg?subformat=icon$$xicon$$yVersión publicada 000152979 909CO $$ooai:zaguan.unizar.es:152979$$particulos$$pdriver 000152979 951__ $$a2025-10-17-14:11:46 000152979 980__ $$aARTICLE