Critical Transitions and Adaptation in Group Dynamics
Abstract
Critical Transitions and Adaptation in Group Dynamics University of Washington Abstract Understanding terrorist group dynamics, particularly among leaders, is essential to anticipating terrorist decisions and actions and, in turn, how groups are impacted by and respond to counterterrorist actions. The interactions among leaders can affect whether terrorist groups use more extreme violence, such as indiscriminate bombings against civilians, the quality of their decisions, and ultimately the stability of the group itself, whether it endures, splinters, or dissolves. Counterterrorist actions can influence these behaviors, directly or indirectly, perhaps with unintended, adverse consequences; for example, targeting a group’s leadership may impair its operational planning but may also further isolate it making susceptible to groupthink and more radical violence. We propose to study group dynamics with a theoretical and mathematical approach which is amenable to future experimental validation. We will build upon our existing ONR and DTRAsponsored research, which has centered on understanding final group outcomes for given initial conditions, to focus on how groups respond to change. In particular, we will address the following broad research questions: (1) What determines when groups will undergo “critical transitions” – major and abrupt changes in state – as a control parameter is varied (such as tradeoffs between issues in the decision space)? (2) What are the signatures of impending critical transitions and how can post-transition outcomes be influenced? (3) How do groups adapt to changes in group structure itself such as the loss of a leader or a communication link? (4) How do critical transitions and adaptation apply in the context of terrorist group dynamics and counterterrorist interventions? Theoretically, we will employ a nonlinear dynamical systems approach in which critical transitions occur via bifurcations. A powerful principle in dynamical systems theory is that bifurcations display universal behaviors in the transition regime which are independent of the details of the governing equations. This universality is at the core of critical transition theory, an emerging framework for understanding and anticipating sharp shifts in complex systems, such as the climate and ecosystems, for which precise and accurate quantitative models do not exist. It hypothesizes that the universal dynamics around bifurcations can be exploited to construct statistical signatures for detecting impending systemic shifts, examples being longer transients, increased variance, and increased spatial coherence. Using stochastic versions of our models, we will investigate such signatures in the vicinity of bifurcations as well as the potential to steer group dynamics to desired outcomes. An additional empirical component of our effort will be the application of the theoretical results to cases of terrorist group dynamics.
Document Details
- Document Type
- DoD Grant Award
- Publication Date
- Aug 12, 2016
- Source ID
- N000141512549
Entities
People
- Michael Gabbay
Organizations
- Office of Naval Research
- United States Navy
- University of Washington