Narrow Results

In this work, we study a simple mathematical model to analyze the emergence and control of radicalization phenomena. The population consists of core and sensitive subpopulations, and their ways of life may be at least partially incompatible. In such a case, if a conflict exists, core agents act as inflexible individuals about the issue. On the other hand, the sensitive agents choose between two options: live peacefully with core population, or oppose it. This kind of modeling was recently considered by Galam and Javarone (2016) with constant pairwise couplings. Here, we consider the more general case with time-dependent transition rates, with the aim of study the impact of such time dependence on the critical behavior of the model. The analytical and numerical results show that the nonequilibrium active-absorbing phase transition can be suppressed in some cases, with the destruction of the absorbing phase where the radical agents disappear of the population in the stationary states.

In this work, we study a simple mathematical model to analyze the emergence and control of radicalization phenomena, motivated by the recent far-right extremist events in Brazil, occurred in 8 January 2023. For this purpose, we considered a compartmental SIS-like model that takes into account only the right electors, for simplicity. The model considers radical and moderated right electors, and the transitions between the two compartments are ruled by probabilities, taking into account pairwise social interactions and the important influence of social media through the dissemination of fake news. The role of the Brazilian Federal Supreme Court on the control of such violent activities is also considered in a simple way. The analytical and numerical results show that the influence of social media is essential for the spreading and prevalence of radicalism in the population. In the presence of such social media, we show that radicalism can be controlled, but not extincted, by an external influence, that models the acting of the Federal Supreme Court over the violent activities of radicals. If the social media effect is absent, the radicalism can disappear of the population, and this phenomenon is associated with an active-absorbing nonequilibrium phase transition, like the one that occurs in the standard SIS model.

Empirical findings from social psychology show that sometimes people show favoritism toward in-group members in order to reach a global consensus, even against individuals' own preferences (e.g., altruistically or deontically). Here we integrate ideas and findings on in-group favoritism, opinion dynamics, and radicalization using an agent-based model entitled cooperative bounded confidence (CBC). We investigate the interplay of homophily, rejection, and in-group cooperation drivers on the formation of opinion clusters and the emergence of extremist, radical opinions. Our model is the first to explicitly explore the effect of in-group favoritism on the macro-level, collective behavior of opinions. We compare our model against the two-dimentional bounded confidence model with rejection mechanism, proposed by Huet et al. [Adv. Complex Syst.13(3) (2010) 405–423], and find that the number of opinion clusters and extremists is reduced in our model. Moreover, results show that group influence can never dominate homophilous and rejecting encounters in the process of opinion cluster formation. We conclude by discussing implications of our model for research on collective behavior of opinions emerging from individuals' interaction.

This paper takes the social unrest in 2019 as a case study and identifies three factors that contributed to the radicalization of social protests in Hong Kong: globalization, digitalization and the U.S. meddling in Hong Kong affairs. First, with the deepening of globalization, the worsening of social-economic conditions had bred populism among the youth. Second, digital technologies and social media platforms also made it easy for young people in Hong Kong to protest in a more covert and radical way. Third, the U.S. support for the Hong Kong opposition leaders added fuel to the radicalization of youth protesters. All these factors finally led to radicalized social protests in Hong Kong. Nevertheless, following the implementation of the National Security Law in Hong Kong SAR, violent activities were largely stopped and social order was gradually restored.