source: Du Shiyu and Qi Jiayan, “Multi-agent Modeling and Simulation on Group Polarization Behavior in Web 2.0”
Several factors are evident. First, there are multiple kinds of agents in play, both individual and collective. The cohesion-fission results are the complex consequence of the agency and strategies of these many agents and their strategic interactions. And there are agents working to secure cohesion at the same time as other agents work to bring about conflict across groups. Second, there are multiple sources of collective grievance that may serve to provide the raw materials for mobilization — fields over which groups have different levels of access to outcomes that they want to control. And third, there are a variety of structural factors that appear to be relevant to the dynamic processes of mobilization that may occur. Let’s look at each of these.
This chapter examines the mobilization of peasants during the Vietnamese revolution. It shows how, out of the rational choices of myriad individual, peasant society can be restructured and new institutions constructed. It shows in particular how peasant organizers, starting with limited material resources and using only their organizational skills, can “bootstrap” their organizations into existence and so “build something from nothing”. Through small interventions in the patterns of daily life these political and religious organizers, here called political entrepreneurs, build institutions which generate a “revolutionary surplus” or profit, and financed by this surplus they then use their local bases to recruit people to a national struggle. (9)
Organizations. Organizations have the ability to communicate with their members; they can supply resources to support mobilization (lease buses to transport demonstrators to the capital city); and they can educate and indoctrinate followers into a particular social world view. There is a wide range of organizations that are relevant to mobilization in a social environment:
- Community-based organizations
- Youth and student organizations
- Gangs and criminal organizations
- Business and industry
- Religious organizations and leaders
Ordinary rank-and-file actors. Most people at any given time are not actively engaged in protest or militant activity. So the success or failure of efforts to polarize a population depend on the ability of leaders and organizations to activate these ordinary actors.
Grievances
Now turn to the grievances that may lead actors to mobilize for action against another group. The primary source of conflict among groups within Marxist theory is property. Class conflict is the primary social conflict. But much social conflict seems to arise from non-material factors —
- Material conflict of interest across communities (property, wealth, income, jobs)
- Cultural and religious conflict of practice
- Conflict over political power within the state over resources
- Kinship relations and conflicts across kinship groups
So there is a wide range of potential causes for polarization. However, at most times and places these potential grievances remain latent rather than expressed. Leaders and organizations can extend efforts towards mobilizing the emotions and adherence of members of society for solidarity around one or another set of grievances.
Influences on the spread of conflictual mobilization
Proximity. The spatial distribution of people across a region influences the ease with which they communicate with each other. Neighbors are more likely to be influenced in their beliefs and motives for action than are strangers from widely separated parts of the city. C. K. Lee points out the impact that dormitory-style living arrangements had for workers in “sunset” industries in China; rumors and calls to action flowed easily through the residential buildings (Against the Law: Labor Protests in China’s Rustbelt and Sunbelt).
Social networks of affiliation. Social networks create communications pathways; they also create differentiated networks of trust. The fact that Suneel’s brother-in-law Atul attends the same temple as Suneel gives Suneel elevated grounds for trusting and relying upon Atul when it comes to learning current information and in responding to calls for action conveyed by Atul.
Incidents. Mobilization within a subcommunity is often triggered by an instigating incident — a traffic accident, an incidence of police brutality, an ethnic slur, a rumor of bad behavior by a member of another subcommunity. The police raid on the blind pig in Detroit in 1967 unleashed a cycle of mobilization and counter-mobilization within Detroit’s population and the state and federal governments.
Tools
Broadcast media. As was evident in the Rwanda genocide (link), control of radio or television stations is a major advantage for organizations and leaders who are seeking to mobilize their followers for a given kind of action.
We still haven’t gotten to a clear answer to the question: under what conditions does a community begin to fission into conflicting components? But this analysis of the elements of the situation sheds some light on the facilitating or inhibiting factors that are relevant to such a process of fissioning. When leaders and organizations emerge who have a political interest in creating division (not an uncommon situation); when genuine underlying tensions exist (pertaining to resources or identity markers); and when features of proximity, interrelatedness, and weakness of policing permit the spread of divisive messages of faction; then fissioning is increasingly like.