  We investigate the connection between Potts (Curie-Weiss) models and
stochastic opinion models in the view of the Boltzmann distribution and
stochastic Glauber dynamics. We particularly find that the q-voter model can be
considered as a natural extension of the Zealot model which is adapted by
Lagrangian parameters. We also discuss weak and strong effects continuum limits
for the models. We then fit four models (Curie-Weiss, strong and weak effects
limit for the q-voter model, and the reinforcement model) to election data from
United States, United Kingdom, France and Germany. We find that particularly
the weak effects models are able to fit the data (Kolmogorov-Smirnov test),
where the weak effects reinforcement model performs best (AIC). The resulting
estimates are interpreted in the view of political sciences, and also the
importance of this kind of model-based approaches to election data for the
political sciences is discussed.
