Game theory of war and democracy

1
Game theory of war and democracy

• introduction

2
Key issues of comparative politics

• How does political order arise from anarchy? What
  is the role of civil war?
• What makes and keeps a democracy stable.
• What makes democratic transitions possible
• The threat of revolution
• the threat repression.
• How do elections keep politicians accountable?

3
Key issues of international relations

• Why do states fight war even though war is costly
  and they both prefer a peaceful solution?
• What accounts for peace?
• Do nuclear weapons make war more or less likely?
• How can we help prevent the dissemination of
  nuclear weapons and other WMD?

4
Game theory is the modeling of interaction
between rational individuals

• instrumental rationality.
• Interaction each player tries to anticipate what
  the other is thinking in order to select a course
  of action.
• Modeling formal logic is the basis for
  cumulative learning.

5
Game theory helps us think beyond existing answers

• Examples
• Hobbes idea that war is a feature of the state
  of nature.
• The idea
• that nuclear weapons make the world safer
• that economic sanctions do not work
• democracy is more efficient than tyranny
• democratic stability requires a democratic
  culture.

6
Four families of models