Editing Game theory (section)

===Political science===
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The application of game theory to [[political science]] is focused in the overlapping areas of [[fair division]], [[political economy]], [[public choice]], [[war's inefficiency puzzle|war bargaining]], [[positive political theory]], and [[social choice theory]]. In each of these areas, researchers have developed game-theoretic models in which the players are often voters, states, special interest groups, and politicians.<ref>{{Cite web |title=What game theory tells us about politics and society |url=https://news.mit.edu/2018/game-theory-politics-alexander-wolitzky-1204 |access-date=2023-04-23 |website=MIT News {{!}} Massachusetts Institute of Technology |date=4 December 2018 |archive-date=23 April 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230423144157/https://news.mit.edu/2018/game-theory-politics-alexander-wolitzky-1204 |url-status=live }}</ref>

Early examples of game theory applied to political science are provided by [[Anthony Downs]]. In his 1957 book ''[[An Economic Theory of Democracy]]'',{{sfnp|Downs|1957}} he applies the [[Hotelling's law|Hotelling firm location model]] to the political process. In the Downsian model, political candidates commit to ideologies on a one-dimensional policy space. Downs first shows how the political candidates will converge to the ideology preferred by the median voter if voters are fully informed, but then argues that voters choose to remain rationally ignorant which allows for candidate divergence. Game theory was applied in 1962 to the [[Cuban Missile Crisis]] during the presidency of John F. Kennedy.<ref>{{cite web |first=Steven J. |last=Brams |author-link=Steven Brams |url=https://plus.maths.org/content/game-theory-and-cuban-missile-crisis |title=Game theory and the Cuban missile crisis |website=Plus Magazine |date=1 January 2001 |access-date=31 January 2016 |archive-date=24 April 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150424010528/https://plus.maths.org/content/game-theory-and-cuban-missile-crisis |url-status=live }}</ref>

It has also been proposed that game theory explains the stability of any form of political government.  Taking the simplest case of a monarchy, for example, the king, being only one person, does not and cannot maintain his authority by personally exercising physical control over all or even any significant number of his subjects.  Sovereign control is instead explained by the recognition by each citizen that all other citizens expect each other to view the king (or other established government) as the person whose orders will be followed.  Coordinating communication among citizens to replace the sovereign is effectively barred, since conspiracy to replace the sovereign is generally punishable as a crime.<ref>{{Cite web |title=How game theory explains 'irrational' behavior |url=https://mitsloan.mit.edu/ideas-made-to-matter/how-game-theory-explains-irrational-behavior |access-date=2023-04-23 |website=MIT Sloan |date=5 April 2022 |archive-date=23 April 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230423144158/https://mitsloan.mit.edu/ideas-made-to-matter/how-game-theory-explains-irrational-behavior |url-status=live }}</ref>  Thus, in a process that can be modeled by variants of the prisoner's dilemma, during periods of stability no citizen will find it rational to move to replace the sovereign, even if all the citizens know they would be better off if they were all to act collectively.{{citation needed|date=July 2024}}

A game-theoretic explanation for [[democratic peace theory|democratic peace]] is that public and open debate in democracies sends clear and reliable information regarding their intentions to other states. In contrast, it is difficult to know the intentions of nondemocratic leaders, what effect concessions will have, and if promises will be kept. Thus there will be mistrust and unwillingness to make concessions if at least one of the parties in a dispute is a non-democracy.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Levy |first1=Gilat |last2=Razin |first2=Ronny |title=It Takes Two: An Explanation for the Democratic Peace |journal=Journal of the European Economic Association |date=March 2004 |volume=2 |issue=1 |pages=1–29 |doi=10.1162/154247604323015463 |url=http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/539/ }}</ref>

However, game theory predicts that two countries may still go to war even if their leaders are cognizant of the costs of fighting. War may result from asymmetric information; two countries may have incentives to mis-represent the amount of military resources they have on hand, rendering them unable to settle disputes agreeably without resorting to fighting. Moreover, war may arise because of commitment problems: if two countries wish to settle a dispute via peaceful means, but each wishes to go back on the terms of that settlement, they may have no choice but to resort to warfare. Finally, war may result from issue indivisibilities.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Fearon |first=James D. |date=1 January 1995 |title=Rationalist Explanations for War |journal=International Organization |volume=49 |issue=3 |pages=379–414 |doi=10.1017/s0020818300033324 |jstor=2706903 |s2cid=38573183 }}</ref>

Game theory could also help predict a nation's responses when there is a new rule or law to be applied to that nation. One example is Peter John Wood's (2013) research looking into what nations could do to help reduce climate change. Wood thought this could be accomplished by making treaties with other nations to reduce [[greenhouse gas emissions]]. However, he concluded that this idea could not work because it would create a prisoner's dilemma for the nations.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Wood |first1=Peter John |title=Climate change and game theory |journal=Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences |date=February 2011 |volume=1219 |issue=1 |pages=153–170 |doi=10.1111/j.1749-6632.2010.05891.x |pmid=21332497 |bibcode=2011NYASA1219..153W |url=http://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/95061 }}</ref>