Crisis Bargaining, Escalation, and MAD

1987 ◽  
Vol 81 (3) ◽  
pp. 717-735 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Powell
Keyword(s):  
Incomplete Information ◽  
Essential Feature ◽  
The State ◽  
Crisis Bargaining ◽  
Sequential Bargaining ◽  
Game Theoretic ◽  
Theoretic Foundations

Although incomplete information is recognized to be an essential feature of crises, game-theoretic formulations have not generally modeled this explicitly. This paper models a mutually assured destruction (MAD) crisis as a game of sequential bargaining with incomplete information, sufficiently simple that its equibria may be found. These provide better game-theoretic foundations for the notions of resolve and critical risk and their role in crises and also make it possible to compare the bargaining dynamics of this model with those of descriptively richer, but incompletely specified models, revealing several inconsistencies: several analyses of MAD conclude that the state with the greatest resolve in this contest of resolve will prevail. Many models based on critical risks suggest that a state is less likely to escalate, the greater its adversary's resolve. In our model, however, the state with the weakest resolve sometimes prevails, and some states prove more likely to escalate if their adversaries' resolve is greater.

Nuclear Brinkmanship with Two-Sided Incomplete Information

1988 ◽  
Vol 82 (1) ◽  
pp. 155-178 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Powell
Keyword(s):  
Incomplete Information ◽  
Conflict Of Interest ◽  
Conflicts Of Interest ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
The State ◽  
Expected Payoff ◽  
Sequential Bargaining ◽  
The Status

A brinkmanship crisis with two-sided incomplete information is modeled as a game of sequential bargaining in which each state is uncertain of its adversary's resolve. The sequential crisis equilibria are characterized explicitly and used to analyze the influences of resolve, misperception, and the status quo on escalation and crisis stability. The description of brinkmanship as a contest of resolve is found to be misleading: the state with the greatest resolve may not prevail in the crisis; a state may be less, not more, likely to prevail the greater its resolve; and a states' expected payoff may be less, not more, the greater its resolve. Moreover, reducing misperception may destabilize a crisis. Surprisingly, increasing the stake a potential challenger has in the status quo may not make a challenge less likely. Finally, crises involving severe conflicts of interest are shown to be less likely than crises not entailing a severe conflict of interest.

scholarly journals The State of Solving Large Incomplete-Information Games, and Application to Poker

AI Magazine ◽  
2010 ◽  
Vol 31 (4) ◽  
pp. 13 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tuomas Sandholm
Keyword(s):  
Incomplete Information ◽  
The State ◽  
Solution Concepts ◽  
Security Applications ◽  
Incomplete Information Games ◽  
Game Theoretic ◽  
Theoretic Solution ◽  
Information Games

Game-theoretic solution concepts prescribe how rational parties should act, but to become operational the concepts need to be accompanied by algorithms. I will review the state of solving incomplete-information games. They encompass many practical problems such as auctions, negotiations, and security applications. I will discuss them in the context of how they have transformed computer poker. In short, game-theoretic reasoning now scales to many large problems, outperforms the alternatives on those problems, and in some games beats the best humans.

Does information about others’ behavior undermine cooperation in social dilemmas?

2016 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 260-274 ◽  
Author(s):  
Craig D. Parks ◽  
Xiaojing Xu ◽  
Paul A. M. Van Lange
Keyword(s):  
Incomplete Information ◽  
Behavior Pattern ◽  
Social Information ◽  
Social Dilemmas ◽  
Environmental Information ◽  
The State ◽  
Resource Information ◽  
Resource Dilemma

This project addresses how and why behavior in a resource dilemma differs when one only knows the choices of others versus only knows the state of the resource. Study 1 suggested that resource information is more valuable than social information, in that if the resource can be monitored, whether or not others’ choices can also be monitored has no impact on behavior. However, if the state of the resource is not known, the ability to know what others are doing is critical for cooperation. This seems to be because resource information encourages planning and long-term thinking, and social information encourages comparative thinking. Study 2 replicated the behavior pattern, revealed—surprisingly—that warnings that a resource is critically low undermine (rather than promote) cooperation, and that such responses depend on the availability of social and environmental information. Discussion focuses on how incomplete information about a resource might be addressed.

Sequential Bargaining with Incomplete Information

1983 ◽  
Vol 50 (2) ◽  
pp. 221 ◽  
Author(s):  
Drew Fudenberg ◽  
Jean Tirole
Keyword(s):  
Incomplete Information ◽  
Sequential Bargaining

Teaching the Future of Technology in the History Classroom: A Case Study

2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (4) ◽  
pp. 253-262 ◽  
Author(s):  
David J. Staley
Keyword(s):  
Incomplete Information ◽  
The State ◽  
Historical Inquiry ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Traditional Methods ◽  
Research Seminar ◽  
Historical Method ◽  
The Future ◽  
The Right

This article will describe how historians can teach the future of technology. Historians need not alter their traditional methods of historical inquiry to teach the future, and indeed the history classroom is a natural site for foresight education. Historical inquiry begins with questions, and futuring similarly begins with asking the right questions. The historian seeks out evidence, and futurists as well identify drivers and blockers, considering how these drivers and blockers will interact with each other. In contrast to social scientists, historians work with imperfect or incomplete information, an apt description of the state of our evidence about the future. In a manner similar to historians, futurists interpret and draw inferences from evidence. After the research an analysis of the evidence is complete, the historian/futurist writes representations. This article will describe how I employed the historical method to teach the future of technology in a history research seminar, the results produced by the students, and ways that the study of the future can be situated in the history classroom.

scholarly journals CONSTITUTIONALIZATION OF THE PRINCIPLES OF LAW AND THEIR IMPORTANCE FOR LEGAL BEHAVIOR

Issues of Law ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 20 (4) ◽  
pp. 21-27
Author(s):  
E.V. Titova ◽  
◽  
A.G. Kuzmin ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Public Relations ◽  
Human Dignity ◽  
Essential Feature ◽  
State Power ◽  
The State ◽  
Legal Principles ◽  
Constitutional Order ◽  
Normative Significance ◽  
Russian Law ◽  
The Law

The article analyzes the objective and natural character of the origin of legal principles; the process of constitutionalization of the principles of Russian law and their implementation into the legitimate behavior of the participants of public relations. The authors substantiate that the content of constitutional principles is represented by three main elements: requirement, ideal, and knowledge. The most essential feature of constitutional principles is their ability for the legal expression of the most socially and politically significant values and ideals (legality, justice, humanism, freedom, equality, respect, trust) for an individual, society, and state. Regulatory features and normative significance of the principles of law are obtained as a result of constitutional formalization, and their embodiment insignificant rules of conduct of the state and the citizen contribute to the establishment of constitutional order. Special attention is paid to the content of some constitutional principles: the principle of respect and protection of human dignity; the principle of maintaining citizens’ trust in the law and the state; the principle of respect for the state power

scholarly journals Civil strife and economic and social policies

2006 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Joseph E. Stiglitz
Keyword(s):  
Conflict Management ◽  
Incomplete Information ◽  
Social Policies ◽  
Civil Strife ◽  
The Public ◽  
Labor Strikes ◽  
Game Theoretic ◽  
Path Dependent ◽  
The One ◽  
Conflict Mitigation

The article compares civil strife in the public arena to labor strikes in the private arena. Both are predicated on incomplete information (both sides believing they can "win," when one - and possibly both - must "lose"). Reasons for conflict, especially in Africa, include the rent-based nature of the economies, the "nothing-much-to-lose" position of many of its participants, the "one-shot" game-theoretic nature of many of its conflicts, and the lack of "voice" of most of its people. The article then draws out six implications for those interested in conflict management and conflict mitigation and comments, for example, on path-dependent irreversibilities of initial policydecisions.

Nuclear Deterrence and the Strategy of Limited Retaliation

1989 ◽  
Vol 83 (2) ◽  
pp. 503-519 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Powell
Keyword(s):  
Incomplete Information ◽  
Formal Analysis ◽  
Nuclear Deterrence ◽  
Deterrence Theory ◽  
Sequential Bargaining ◽  
Nuclear Exchange ◽  
Coercive Pressure

Recent formal work in nuclear deterrence theory has focused on brinkmanship crises in which states exert coercive pressure by manipulating the risk of an unlimited nuclear exchange. This essay extends the formal analysis of deterrence theory to the strategy of limited retaliation in which states exert coercive pressure by inflicting limited amounts of damage in order to make the threat of future punishment more credible. This strategy is modeled as a game of sequential bargaining with incomplete information. The equilibria suggest that states prefer relatively smaller, less-destructive limited options; that counterforce options are desirable even if they cannot limit the total amount of damage an adversary can inflict; that smaller, less-destructive limited nuclear options may make a nuclear exchange more likely; and that uncertainty and incomplete information may significantly enhance deterrence.

Strategic Interaction and Interstate Crises: A Bayesian Quantal Response Estimator for Incomplete Information Games

2008 ◽  
Vol 16 (3) ◽  
pp. 250-273 ◽  
Author(s):  
Justin Esarey ◽  
Bumba Mukherjee ◽  
Will H. Moore
Keyword(s):  
Asymmetric Information ◽  
Incomplete Information ◽  
Learning Process ◽  
Private Information ◽  
Statistical Treatment ◽  
Quantal Response ◽  
Crisis Bargaining ◽  
Incomplete Information Games ◽  
Information Characteristics ◽  
Information Games

Private information characteristics like resolve and audience costs are powerful influences over strategic international behavior, especially crisis bargaining. As a consequence, states face asymmetric information when interacting with one another and will presumably try to learn about each others' private characteristics by observing each others' behavior. A satisfying statistical treatment would account for the existence of asymmetric information and model the learning process. This study develops a formal and statistical framework for incomplete information games that we term the Bayesian Quantal Response Equilibrium Model (BQRE model). Our BQRE model offers three advantages over existing work: it directly incorporates asymmetric information into the statistical model's structure, estimates the influence of private information characteristics on behavior, and mimics the temporal learning process that we believe takes place in international politics.

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