Why Are Contemporary Political Revolutions Leaderless? An Agent-Based Explanation

One of the main aspects of the recent wave of revolutions in the so-called Arab Spring is the absence of a strong political leadership, substituted by an intensive use of social network technologies as a mean to obtain mass mobilizations. This evidence is in sharp contrast with the previous historical experience: in fact, charismatic gures, like Robespierre, Lenin, Mao and Khomeini, have shaped the major revolutions in History. The present paper tries to provide an explanation for this radical change using the agent-based framework. In particular, this paper presents an agent-based model in which a subjugated population of agents decides to rebel or not against a central government. This decision is made under two di erent settings: in the absence of social network technologies, both with and without charismatic leaders, in one case; and in the presence of a social network, in the other case. The simulations of the model show that, without the use of social media, in uential leaders are necessary to obtain a huge mass mobilization while, in the presence of a social network, it is possible to observe such a result without the need of a strong political leadership. With respect to the previous literature, the model presented in this paper extends the basic Epstein's (2002) agent-based model of civil violence by incorporating the e ects of revolutionary leaders and social media, which are fundamental ingredients in explaining massive protests phenomena. Moreover, it enriches the analysis of Makowsky and Rubin (2013) about the importance of social media in triggering cascades of preference revelation in autocratic societies by explaining the reason why contemporary uprisings are