Terrorism: Mechanisms of Radicalization Processes, Control of Contagion and Counter-Terrorist Measures

TL;DR

This paper introduces a model for understanding and controlling the spread of radical ideologies using epidemiological contagion principles, aiming to predict and prevent terrorist activities through social network monitoring.

Contribution

It presents a novel individual-based contagion model for radicalization that aids in early detection and intervention in terrorist networks with limited information.

Findings

The model effectively predicts radicalization spread on social networks.

Monitoring suspicious individuals can help contain terrorist network development.

The approach requires minimal information for effective intervention.

Abstract

The spread of radical ideologies is a key to fanaticism, recruitment and terrorist activities. Hence, preventing such activities requires predictive models capable of identifying areas and agents before occurrence of catastrophic terrorist act. In this paper, we develop a model that captures a radicalization mechanism through several intermediate stages of individuals. We propose a radicalizatiom mechanism using individual-based approach constructed from epidemiological model of contagion. Our model builds on insights from contagion models used in theoretical epidemiology and entails a mechanism for controlling the spread of radical ideologies on social spatial networks by identifying suspicious individuals and monitoring them, and taking action when necessary. We show how our model can combat the development of terrorist networks even with limited information on a target terrorist network.