Games on signed graphs

Abstract

Decision-makers in foreign policy and national security are constantly confronted with an adversarial, networked environments. In such an environment, the “entities” (i.e., political establishments and military organizations) to whom those decision-makers are answerable are connected through a web of friendly and adversarial relationships. By a “networked political behavior” means that one’s behavior can always propagate influences across the world for the world’s connectedness. This paper contains a general, mathematical framework of rational agents’ strategic interactions in the international security environment, which helps to draw theoretical and practical implications thereof. The theoretical framework called “games on signed graphs” examines how countries strive to survive and succeed in a globally networked environment through security and relation dynamics. Two games will be studied, with one called the power allocation game and the other called the signed network formation game. Theoretical findings, real-world applications, and possible extensions will be presented and discussed.