AI 中文总结
研究政治系统中腐败为何持续，引入最小隔室模型，将政治权力集中视为涌现现象。模型有非平凡相变，预测临界强度上俘获状态稳定，为腐败持续提供解释，如里约热内卢州政治动态可示例，表明长期政治俘获可自发出现。
AI 中文摘要
政治腐败通常被解释为个人不当行为或孤立的制度失败的结果。然而，现实世界政治系统中观察到的持续腐败模式表明，系统性腐败可能是一种由强化互动结构支持的自我维持的治理安排。在这项工作中，我们引入了一个用于系统性政治腐败动态和腐败支持关系结构形成的最小隔室模型。政治权力的集中被视为这些耦合动态产生的一种涌现宏观可观测现象。尽管该模型简单且具有平均场特征，但它展示了一个非平凡的相变，将低腐败状态与由自我强化互动机制维持的结构俘获状态区分开来。该模型预测，在临界互动强度之上，俘获状态变得动态稳定，宏观变量的小扰动自然会松弛回稳态。我们认为这种机制为跨连续选举周期和制度危机的腐败持续存在提供了一种可能的解释。特别是，巴西里约热内卢州观察到的政治动态为所提出框架讨论的几种机制提供了定性说明示例，而非该模型的定量应用。更广泛地说，结果表明长期政治俘获可能从系统性腐败与其维持的关系结构之间的强化互动中自发出现，无需集中协调或复杂的战略行为。
英文摘要
Political corruption is often interpreted as the result of individual misconduct or isolated institutional failures. However, persistent corruption patterns observed in real-world political systems suggest that systemic corruption may instead emerge as a self-sustaining governance arrangement supported by reinforcing interaction structures. In this work, we introduce a minimal compartmental model for the dynamics of systemic political corruption and the formation of corruption-supporting relational structures. The concentration of political power is treated as an emergent macroscopic observable arising from these coupled dynamics. Despite its simplicity and mean-field character, the model exhibits a nontrivial phase transition separating regimes of low corruption from structurally captured states sustained by self-reinforcing interaction mechanisms. The model predicts that, above a critical interaction strength, the captured state becomes dynamically stable, with small perturbations of the macroscopic variables naturally relaxing back to the stationary state. We argue that this mechanism provides a possible explanation for the persistence of corruption across successive electoral cycles and institutional crises. In particular, the political dynamics observed in the state of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, provide a qualitative illustrative example of several mechanisms discussed by the proposed framework rather than a quantitative application of the model. More broadly, the results suggest that long-term political capture may emerge spontaneously from reinforcing interactions between systemic corruption and the relational structures that sustain it, without requiring centralized coordination or complex strategic behavior.
Comments17 pages, 1 figure, to appear in Frontiers in Physics - Social Physics section
Journal refFrontiers in Physics 14,1897453 (2026)
