Global stability in a mathematical model of de-radicalization

Manuele Santoprete and Fei Xu

Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, 2018, vol. 509, issue C, 151-161

Abstract: Radicalization is the process by which people come to adopt increasingly extreme political, social or religious ideologies. When radicalization leads to violence, radical thinking becomes a threat to national security. De-radicalization programs are part of an effort to combat violent extremism and terrorism. This type of initiatives attempt to alter violent extremists radical beliefs and violent behavior with the aim to reintegrate them into society. In this paper we introduce a simple compartmental model suitable to describe de-radicalization programs. The population is divided into four compartments: (S) susceptible, (E) extremists, (R) recruiters, and (T) treatment. We calculate the basic reproduction number R0. For R0<1 the system has one globally asymptotically stable equilibrium where no extremist or recruiters are present. For R0>1 the system has an additional equilibrium where extremists and recruiters are endemic to the population. A Lyapunov function is used to show that, for R0>1, the endemic equilibrium is globally asymptotically stable. We use numerical simulations to support our analytical results. Based on our model we assess strategies to counter violent extremism.

Keywords: Extremism; Mathematical sociology; Sociophysics; Population model; Global stability; Lyapunov functions (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0378437118307519
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only. Journal offers the option of making the article available online on Science direct for a fee of $3,000

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:phsmap:v:509:y:2018:i:c:p:151-161

DOI: 10.1016/j.physa.2018.06.027

Access Statistics for this article

Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications is currently edited by K. A. Dawson, J. O. Indekeu, H.E. Stanley and C. Tsallis

More articles in Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().