Petrovskii Sergei, Shishlenin Maxim, Glukhov Anton
School of Computing and Mathematical Sciences, University of Leicester, Leicester, UK.
Peoples Friendship University of Russia (RUDN University), 6 Miklukho-Maklaya Str., 117198 Moscow, Russia.
PLoS One. 2025 Apr 10;20(4):e0319837. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0319837. eCollection 2025.
Street protests have been a common feature of human society for many centuries. They often act as a driver of social changes but they may also disrupt everyday life and lead to considerable economic losses. Understanding of factors that may affect the duration of street protests and the number of participants is a problem of pivotal importance. Mathematical modelling is an efficient research approach to study this problem. Here we present a novel modelling framework that takes into account heterogeneity of protesters behaviour and the effect of policing. Using the 2018-2019 Yellow Vest Movement in France as a case study, we show that our model is in a very good agreement with data. We also show that a moderate increase in the efficiency of police actions on particular days may have a significant effect on protest's intensity and duration. Our findings open a possibility for a more efficient protests management.
几个世纪以来，街头抗议一直是人类社会的一个常见特征。它们常常推动社会变革，但也可能扰乱日常生活并导致巨大的经济损失。了解可能影响街头抗议持续时间和参与者数量的因素是一个至关重要的问题。数学建模是研究这个问题的一种有效研究方法。在这里，我们提出了一个新颖的建模框架，该框架考虑了抗议者行为的异质性和治安的影响。以2018 - 2019年法国黄背心运动为例，我们表明我们的模型与数据非常吻合。我们还表明，在特定日子里警察行动效率的适度提高可能会对抗议的强度和持续时间产生重大影响。我们的研究结果为更有效的抗议管理开辟了可能性。
