Networks of Conflict and Cooperation

Abstract

Conflict and cooperation do not result from isolated individual actions. In settings such as insurgency, interstate conflict, protest mobilization, and informal governance, actors are highly interdependent. The study of networks aims to identify what the relevant interdependencies are and, crucially, how they shape conflict and cooperation outcomes. Although this is a relatively new research area, its early results convincingly establish that networks matter. Social networks provide information, transmit peer pressure, and structure interactions in ways that help groups overcome social dilemmas. With much research documenting the importance of particular outcomes in particular areas, the next major step will be putting the pieces together. Which connections between actors matter in which circumstances and how? The groundwork has been well laid for this large future research endeavor. Expected final online publication date for the Annual Review of Political Science, Volume 24 is May 2021. Please see http://www.annualreviews.org/page/journal/pubdates for revised estimates.

Studying topic engagement and synergy among candidates for 2020 US Elections

“…Another survey by Chandrasekaran and Mago ( 2021 ) lists the different methods available to evaluate the semantic similarity between texts, ranging from traditional Natural Language Processing (NLP) techniques to deep neural-network-based hybrid methods (Chandrasekaran and Mago 2021 ), out of which, we alter one method as per the objectives of this study, to measure the internal cooperation among candidates based on their tweets. However, several factors affect the conflicts and synergy within a group as highlighted in the studies (Gross and De Dreu 2019 ; Larson 2021 ; Madeo and Mocenni 2020 ; Perkoski 2019 ). It is important to identify them for effective operations and governance.…”

Resilience to stress in bipartite networks: application to the Islamic State recruitment network

“…Researchers have noted that network homophily, or the tendency of nodes with similar attributes to share connections, can profoundly shape a host of political processes, including public opinion (e.g., Choi, Sang and Park, 2014;Bessi et al, 2016), ideology (e.g., Boutyline and Willer, 2017;Huber and Malhotra, 2017), political discourse (e.g., Weare, Musso and Jun, 2009;Colleoni, Rozza and Arvidsson, 2014), elite politics (e.g., Opper, Nee and Brehm, 2015), and protests (e.g., Centola, 2013;Dincelli, Hong and DePaula, 2016), among other issues (e.g., Maoz, 2012;Huber and Malhotra, 2017;Gallop and Minhas, 2021). Several scholars have applied these concepts to better understand rebel and terrorist mobilization (Magouirk, Atran and Sageman, 2008;Lewis, 2017, 2018;Larson, 2021). Larson and Lewis (2018) find that rebel groups use rumors to help consolidate their group during the early stages of rebellion.…”

Resilience to stress in bipartite networks: Application to the Islamic State recruitment network

“…Researchers have noted that network homophily, or the tendency of nodes with similar attributes to share connections, can profoundly shape a host of political processes, including public opinion (e.g., Choi, Sang and Park, 2014;Bessi et al, 2016), ideology (e.g., Boutyline andWiller, 2017;Huber and Malhotra, 2017), political discourse (e.g., Weare, Musso and Jun, 2009;Colleoni, Rozza and Arvidsson, 2014), elite politics (e.g., Opper, Nee and Brehm, 2015), and protests (e.g., Centola, 2013;Dincelli, Hong and DePaula, 2016), among other issues (e.g., Maoz, 2012;Huber and Malhotra, 2017;Gallop and Minhas, 2021). Several scholars have applied these concepts to better understand rebel and terrorist mobilization (Magouirk, Atran and Sageman, 2008;Lewis, 2017, 2018;Larson, 2021). Larson and Lewis (2018) analyze how rebel groups can use rumors to help consolidate their group during the early stages of rebellion.…”