| Record |
| Author |
Bottcher, L.; Montealegre, P.; Goles, E.; Gersbach, H. |
| Title |
Competing activists-Political polarization |
Type |
|
| Year |
2020 |
Publication |
Physica A-Statistical Mechanics And Its Applications |
Abbreviated Journal |
Physica A |
| Volume |
545 |
Issue |
|
Pages |
13 pp |
| Keywords |
Political polarization; Opinion formation; Activists; Markov chains; Game theory |
| Abstract |
Recent empirical findings suggest that societies have become more polarized in various countries. That is, the median voter of today represents a smaller fraction of society compared to two decades ago and yet, the mechanisms underlying this phenomenon are not fully understood. Since interactions between influential actors ("activists'') and voters play a major role in opinion formation, e.g. through social media, we develop a macroscopic opinion model in which competing activists spread their political ideas in specific groups of society. These ideas spread further to other groups in declining strength. While unilateral spreading shifts the opinion distribution, competition of activists leads to additional phenomena: Small heterogeneities among competing activists cause them to target different groups in society, which amplifies polarization. For moderate heterogeneities, we obtain target cycles and further amplification of polarization. In such cycles, the stronger activist differentiates himself from the weaker one, while the latter aims to imitate the stronger activist. (C) 2019 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. |
| Address |
[Boettcher, Lucas] Swiss Fed Inst Technol, Inst Theoret Phys, CH-8093 Zurich, Switzerland, Email: lucasb@ethz.ch |
| Corporate Author |
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Thesis |
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| Publisher |
Elsevier |
Place of Publication |
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Editor |
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| Language |
English |
Summary Language |
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Original Title |
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| Series Editor |
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Series Title |
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Abbreviated Series Title |
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| Series Volume |
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Series Issue |
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Edition |
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| ISSN |
0378-4371 |
ISBN |
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Medium |
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| Area |
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Expedition  |
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Conference |
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| Notes |
WOS:000526845600034 |
Approved |
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| Call Number |
UAI @ eduardo.moreno @ |
Serial |
1147 |
| Permanent link to this record |
