A fuzzy set based approach to generalized landscape theory of aggregation

In this paper, we firstly reformulate the landscape theory of aggregation (Axelrod and Bennett, 1993) in terms of an optimization problem, and then straightforwardly propose a fuzzy-set-theoretic based extension for it. To illustrate efficiency of the proposal, we make a simulation with the proposed framework for the international alignment of the Second World War in Europe. It is shown that the obtained results are essentially comparable to those given by the original theory. Consequently, the fuzzy-set-theoretic based extension of landscape theory can allow us to analyze a wide variety of aggregation processes in politics, economics, and society in a more flexible manner.