Local interaction and non-local coordination in agent social law diffusion

There are always two kinds of forms in agent social law diffusion, which are local interaction and non-local coordination. This paper provides an integrated model to make a tradeoff between local diffusion and non-local diffusion. In the local interaction, each agent often interacts with a small set of social ‘neighbors’ and imitates the locally most authoritative law; in the non-local coordination, agents may coordinate with others that are not in the neighboring places for some tasks, and will negotiate about their social laws according to the coordination strategy. With the presented model, the diffusions between local interaction and non-local coordination can be harmonized, and the diffusion impacts of different strategies in non-local coordination can also be addressed well. 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.