POLI 359 Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: Bounded Rationality, Utility, Food Security
3 Oct 2016
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Document Summary
Game theory assumes features of individual motivation/interest and deduce from these a structure of behaviour for the system as a whole. This allows to understand how actors act/react and therefore to find conditions necessary for cooperation. The problem of cooperation: from an individual perspective: If there is no central authority, life is solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short (hobbes, 1651) The solution would then be to establish governments, to provide central authority so as to regulate behaviour. Once governments are established, cooperation among citizens becomes possible. The problem of cooperation: in the international system: Their primary goal is survival, security, and sovereignty. What states ultimately want is to maintain their power. The system is therefore a self-help system = you cannot fully rely on other states to help with your security because of no superior authority to make sure others comply with their cooperation. Everyone becomes a potential threat in the anarchic system (realism).
