Multigame dynamics: Structures and strategies

Abstract

The dominant strategy among game theorists is to pose a problem narrowly, formalize that structure, and then pursue analytical solutions. This strategy has achieved a number of stylized insights, but has not produced nuanced game-theoretic solutions to larger and more complex issues such as extended international historical conflicts, or the detailed assessment of variegated policy alternatives. In order to model more complex historical and policy-oriented processes, it has been proposed that a broader computational approach to game theory that has the potential to capture richer forms of social dynamics be used, namely the 'multigame.' In the multigame approach there are multiple games each of which is open, prototypical, implicit, reciprocal, positional, variegated and historical. When later implemented, the multigame approach will offer the potential to rigorously model complex international historical conflicts and variegated policy alternatives that, heretofore, typically required qualitative analysis. © 2011 Springer-Verlag.