What Is Politics Tuesday January 20 2015 2 15 PM What Is Politics Game Theory Politics is the subset of human behavior that involves the use of power or influence Power is involved when people can t accomplish their goals without trying to influence or escape the influence of others One of the tools political scientists use to study politics is known as game theory Formally modeling the interaction between two or more strategic political actors In any game an individual s ability to achieve goals depends on other actors choices Players actions are interdependent individuals make decisions based in part by what others are doing Players are faced with choices available courses of action Small and discrete set of available actions Small number of players Players face a decision at a choice node Payoffs distributed at the game s terminal node A payoff indicates how the players value each of the outcomes A generic representation of utility a generic way to identify the relative good that comes to a player Assume players are rational the player will do what she believes is in her best interest to max her payoff based on what she knows at the time of choosing We solve games by figuring what each rational player will do based on their beliefs and payoffs A Game A strategy for playing the game is a complete plan of action that specifies what a player would do under every possible circumstance Because players actions are interdependent so are their payoffs A Game A strategy for playing the game is a complete plan of action that specifies what a player would do under every possible circumstance Because players actions are interdependent so are their payoffs A strategy describes a player s best action under all possible actions taken by the other player An important solution concept for games is a Nash equilibrium A set of strategies one for each player such that no player has an incentive to unilaterally independently switch to another strategy A game tree Two players players choice nodes Backward induction requires we start at the terminal nodes and roll back to the tree to evaluate Exit voice loyalty Prehistory Something has happened that results in the transfer of some benefit from the citizen to the state Ex A tax increase a denial of some public service Citizen must decide whether to Accept change remain loyal L Resist the change by exiting the situation E Protest and try to get benefit back through the use of voice V If you want to be influential you must have a credible exit such as the person you are interacting with depends on you in some way How do you get a raise at work No credible exit you are out of luck Some situations are observationally equivalent If the citizen has no credible exit we cannot learn whether the state is autonomous or dependent If we see a state ignoring a citizen we cannot infer that the state is autonomous a 4 If voice was effective the state deprived the citizen in the first place The state would anticipate protests Being powerful is like being a lady If you have to tell people you are you aren t Thatcher 1 2 3 Being powerful is like being a lady If you have to tell people you are you aren t Thatcher
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