Hong Inho, Rutherford Alex, Cebrian Manuel
Center for Humans and Machines, Max Planck Institute for Human Development, Lentzealle 94, 14195 Berlin, Germany.
Appl Netw Sci. 2021;6(1):11. doi: 10.1007/s41109-021-00356-9. Epub 2021 Feb 11.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, political polarization has emerged as a significant threat that inhibits coordinated action of central and local institutions reducing the efficacy of non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs). Yet, it is not well-understood to what extent polarization can affect grass-roots, voluntary social mobilization targeted at mitigating the pandemic spread. Here, we propose a polarized mobilization model amidst the pandemic for demonstrating the differential responses to COVID-19 as mediated by the USA's political landscape. We use a novel dataset and models from time-critical social mobilization competitions, voting records, and a high-resolution county-wise friendship network. Our simulations show that a higher degree of polarization impedes the overall spread of mobilization and leads to a highly-heterogeneous impact among states. Our hypothetical compliance campaign to mitigate COVID-19 spread predicts grass-roots mitigation strategies' success before the dates of actual lockdowns in identically polarized states with more than three times of success rate than oppositely polarized states. Finally, we analyze the coupling of social mobilization leading to unrest and the growth of COVID-19 infections. These findings highlight social mobilization as both a collective precautionary measure and a potential threat to countermeasures, together with a warning message that the emerging polarization can be a significant hurdle of NPIs relying on coordinated action.
在新冠疫情期间，政治两极化已成为一个重大威胁，它阻碍了中央和地方机构的协同行动，降低了非药物干预措施（NPIs）的效果。然而，对于两极化在多大程度上会影响旨在减缓疫情传播的基层自愿社会动员，人们还了解得不够透彻。在此，我们提出了一个疫情期间的两极化动员模型，以展示在美国政治格局的影响下，对新冠疫情的不同反应。我们使用了来自时间紧迫的社会动员竞赛、投票记录以及高分辨率的县级友谊网络的新数据集和模型。我们的模拟结果表明，更高程度的两极化会阻碍动员的整体传播，并导致各州之间产生高度异质的影响。我们为减缓新冠疫情传播而进行的假设性合规运动预测，在极化程度相同的州，基层减缓策略在实际封锁日期之前就能取得成功，成功率是极化程度相反州的三倍多。最后，我们分析了导致社会动荡的社会动员与新冠病毒感染增长之间的耦合关系。这些发现凸显了社会动员既是一种集体预防措施，也是对对策的潜在威胁，同时还发出了一个警告信息，即新出现的两极化可能成为依赖协同行动的非药物干预措施的重大障碍。
