Modeling and Control in Social Dynamics

Radical Groups, Dogmatists, and Charismatic Leaders A Simple Unifying Modeling Approach

Rainer Hegselmann

Universitat Bayreuth
[SLIDES]

In the analysis of opinion dynamics the so called bounded confidence model has received a lot of attention. By a few simple extensions it is possible to model radical groups, dogmatists, charismatic leaders and processes of radicalization in the bounded confidence framework. In the resulting model we get a lot of surprising (non-)monotonicities. In certain regions of the parameter space more radicals or more ‘charismaticity’ may lead to less radicalisation.