Related papers: Encouraging moderation: Clues from a simple model …
A general model for opinion formation and competition, like in ideological struggles is formulated. The underlying set is a closed one, like a country but in which the population size is variable in time. Several ideologies compete to…
Political moderation, a key attractor in democratic systems, proves highly fragile under realistic information conditions. We develop a stochastic model of opinion dynamics to analyze how noise and differential susceptibility reshape the…
Radicalization is the process by which people come to adopt increasingly extreme political or religious ideologies. While radical thinking is by no means problematic in itself, it becomes a threat to national security when it leads to…
Extreme polarization can undermine democracy by making compromise impossible and transforming politics into a zero-sum game. Ideological polarization - the extent to which political views are widely dispersed - is already strong among…
Opinion dynamics concerns social processes through which populations or groups of individuals agree or disagree on specific issues. As such, modelling opinion dynamics represents an important research area that has been progressively…
The dynamics of political opinion are a critical component of modern society with large-scale implications for the evolution of intra- and international political discourse and policy. Here we utilize recent high-resolution survey data to…
We live in an age of information abundance but know little about how this influences our opinions or attitudes. A common expectation is that people consulting numerous pieces of information, well balancing the different sides of an issue,…
Opinion polarization is on the rise, causing concerns for the openness of public debates. Additionally, extreme opinions on different topics often show significant correlations. The dynamics leading to these polarized ideological opinions…
Individuals are increasingly exposed to news and opinion from beyond national borders in a world that is becoming more and more globalised. This news and opinion is often concentrated in clusters of ideological homophily such as political…
In democracies, major policy decisions typically require some form of majority or consensus, so elites must secure mass support to govern. Historically, elites could shape support only through limited instruments like schooling and mass…
Polarization, defined as the emergence of sharply divided groups with opposing and often extreme views, is an increasingly prominent feature of modern societies. While many studies analyze this phenomenon in the context of single issues,…
We introduce a two-variable model to describe spatial polarization, radicalization, and conflict. Individuals in the model harbor a continuous belief variable as well as a discrete radicalization level expressing their tolerance to…
The evolution of opinions in a population of individuals who constantly interact with a common source of user-generated content (i.e. the internet) and are also subject to propaganda is analyzed using computer simulations. The model is…
Frequently we revise our first opinions after talking over with other individuals because we get convinced. Argumentation is a verbal and social process aimed at convincing. It includes conversation and persuasion. In this case, the…
We present a toy model of opinion spreading in a society which combines a self-reinforcing mechanism with diffusion. The relative strength of these two mechanisms - called the affectability of the system - is a free parameter of the model.…
Political polarization has become a growing concern in democratic societies, as it drives tribal alignments and erodes civic deliberation among citizens. Given its prevalence across different countries, previous research has sought to…
Many models have been proposed to explain opinion formation in groups of individuals; most of these models study opinion propagation as the interaction between nodes/agents in a social network. Opinion formation is a complex process and a…
I study an election between two ideologically polarized parties that are both office- and policy-motivated. The parties compete by proposing policies on a single issue. The analysis uncovers a non-monotonic relationship between ideological…
This paper provides a novel summary measure of ideological polarization in the American public based on the joint distribution of survey responses. Intuitively, polarization is maximized when views are concentrated at opposing extremes with…
Based on a dynamical model with fractional derivatives we show that the evolution of radical groups in a society with a memory depends mainly on the active proselytism of radical groups and the level of cohesion in social networks. We find…