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In a connected world where people influence each other, what can cause a globalized monoculture, and which measures help to preserve the coexistence of cultures? Previous research has shown that factors such as homophily, population size, geography, mass media, and type of social influence play important roles. In the present paper, we investigate for the first time the impact that institutions have on cultural diversity. In our first three studies, we extend existing agent-based models and explore the effects of institutional influence and agent loyalty. We find that higher institutional influence increases cultural diversity, while individuals' loyalty to their institutions has a small, preserving effect. In three further studies, we test how bottom-up and top-down processes of institutional influence impact our model. We find that bottom-up democratic practices, such as referenda, tend to produce convergence towards homogeneity, while top-down information dissemination practices, such as propaganda, further increase diversity. In our last model—an integration of bottom-up and topdown processes into a feedback loop of information—we find that when democratic processes are rare, the effects of propaganda are amplified, i.e., more diversity emerges; however, when democratic processes are common, they are able to neutralize or reverse this propaganda effect. Importantly, our models allow for control over the full spectrum of diversity, so that a manipulation of our parameters can result in preferred levels of diversity, which will be useful for the study of other factors in the future.We discuss possible mechanisms behind our results, applications, and implications for political and social sciences.

We show how in colonial Potosı´ (present-day Bolivia) social and political stabil-ity was achieved through the self-organization of society through the repetition of religious rituals. Our analysis shows that the population of Potosı´ develops over the time a series of cycles of rituals and miracles as a response to social upheaval and natural disasters and that these cycles of religious performance become crucial mechanisms of cooperation among different ethnic and religious groups. Our methodology starts with a close reading and annotation of the Historia de Potosı´ by Bartolome´ Arzans. Then, we model the religious cycles of miracles and rituals and store all social and cultural information about the cycles in a multirelational graph database. Finally, we perform graph analysis through traversals queries in order to establish facts concerning social networks, historical evolution of behaviors, types of participation of miraculous characters according to dates, parts of the city, ethnic groups, etc. It is also important to note that the religious activity at the group level gave native communities a way to participate in the social life. It also guaranteed that the city performed its role as producer of silver in the global economic structure of the Spanish empire. This case proves the importance of religion as a mechanism of stability and self-organization in periods of social or political turbulence. The multidisciplinary methodology combining traditional humanistic techniques with graph analysis shows a great potential for other sociological, historical, and literary problems.