Moderate and Tolerant Groups in the Political Polarisation of Social Networks

Abstract

This paper attempts to research the minimum size which a moderate and tolerant group of individuals should have in order to lead an extremely intolerant and polarised social network to achieve political consensus. It also analyses the potential effect of different structural properties of networks (network density and inequality of link distribution), and certain individual properties (tolerance and entrenchment of political opinions) on that minimum size. To do so, it combines agent-based modelling and social network analysis in order to carry out virtual experiments with artificial networks. The results reveal the existence of a minimum, critical size under which political consensus is hardly ever achieved, as well as showing that such size depends heavily on various structural and individual properties.