Document Type
Working Paper
Date of This Version
9-1-2014
Keywords
Terrorism, Genocide, Game Theory
Abstract
This article uses evolutionary game theory to reveal the interpersonal and geographic characteristics of a society that make it vulnerable to a conquest from within by terrorist organizations and genocide architects. Under conditions identified in the space-less version of the model, entrepreneurs of violence can create the social metamorphosis of a peaceful people group into one that supports or does not resist violence against an out-group. The model is extended into geographic space by analyzing interactions among peaceful and aggressive phenotypes in Moore and von Neumann neighborhoods. The model also reveals policy interventions in which the social evolution of aggression never gets started or comes to a halt if already underway.
Working Paper Number
1407
Recommended Citation
Anderton, Charles, "The Social Evolution of Terror and Genocide across Time and Geographic Space: Perspectives from Evolutionary Game Theory" (2014). Economics Department Working Papers. Paper 163.
https://crossworks.holycross.edu/econ_working_papers/163