Multi-level Game Research Articles

A social procedurial approach to the Pareto optimization problematique

This article applies a variant of game theory to the Pareto multi-value problematique, that is situations where members of a group, community or society are faced with alternative allocations, institutional arrangements, or states of the world and may collectively choose an allocation, institutional arrangement or state of the world if they can agree on it. This type of multiple value decision situation is increasingly prevalent not only on the level of societal and political issues but on the level of many enterprises, particularly those advocating corporate social responsibility. Because actors hold and apply values from different perspectives, there are potential contradictory value judgments and incompatible equilibria. In a world of contradiction, incommensurability, and disequilibrium, to what extent can conflicts be resolved and social equilibrium accomplished? Force works but it is inherently unstable. Drawing on an extension of classical game theory, generalized game theory (GGT), this article addresses the multi-value problematique in terms of collective “resolution procedures.” These regulative procedures—or social algorithms—are applied to problems of conflict and suboptimality in a multiple value world such as Pareto envisioned. This paper (the first of two) outlines key elements of GGT, defines the Pareto multi-value problematique, pointing out several of the critical weaknesses, theoretical as well as empirical, of the Pareto approach. GGT is then applied in defining and analyzing several major procedures to realize improvements in a multi-value world characterized by conflict and sub-optimality. A second article conceptualizes a complex of societal games making up a social system with 2-phase multi-level game processes; it applies the conceptualization to the different societal procedures for multi-value choice under conditions of conflict. Procedures such as democratic voting, adjudication and administrative decision-making, and multi-lateral negotiation are capable of producing outcomes that in many cases are widely accepted as legitimate and become social equilibria (at least within some range of conditions). These procedures and the conditions for their activation and implementation are modelled and explicated through a generalized game approach.

Tied hands? Italian political parties and Europe

Italian political parties have been involved for almost three decades in a multi-level electoral game encompassing the election of national, supranational and local institutions. The content of the electoral competition has also changed to include not only nationwide, but also sub-national and supranational issues. This article analyses the interaction between Italian parties and the theme of European integration. The aim is to explore the role of contentious European Union matters in domestic electoral competition, specifically at the time of European elections. Such a role is important to understand to what extent the Italian parties politicise the EU issues during EP elections, and to determine the impact of such issues on the Italian party system and on its patterns of policy competition. In particular, the article will explore whether Europe as an issue has been internalised along the main patterns of party competition or has produced a disruptive effect and forms of realignment.

Introduction: Government Coalitions in Multi-level Settings—Institutional Determinants and Party Strategy

Government formation is an essential aspect of party politics. In those countries with a multi-level system of governance, coalition formation itself is a multi-level game. This special issue brings together contributions that explore regional coalition formation in Belgium, Spain, Germany and Italy. Party coalition choices appear to be constrained by systemic determinants, such as whether the federal setting tends to be joint or competitive, bipolar or multipolar, majoritarian or consociational and uni- or plurinational. Furthermore, the distribution of veto powers in the multi-level decision-making structure is a crucial determinant of how integrated party coalition strategies are across levels. Other key factors that explain these choices pertain to how integrated national and subnational party systems are and to individual party attributes, such as ideology, goals and internal organization. Last, but not least, it appears that the role of personal relations both within parties at different governing levels and between parties at the same level is also highly important, as multi-level settings are characterized by great complexity.

Cities and Organized Interest Intermediation in the EU Multi-Level System

It is argued that European cities gain new room for political manoeuvre because the process of Europeanization implies the opening-up of a new political sphere in which cities can play a new multi-level game or traditional structures of domestic policy making can — at least partly — be bypassed. First, we consider whether there are specific points of access for local-level actors to EU institutions. Cities can enter into the European policy-making process by providing EU institutions with knowledge, legitimacy and ways to monitor the implementation of EU policies. Second, we analyse how cities organize their activities to utilize these access points. Based on an investigation of two pan-European cities' organizations, the Council of European Municipalities and Regions (CEMR) and Eurocities, we consider how different organizational models influence their effectiveness as a part of the EU governance system. Eurocities is a network type of organization whose activities are based on the modus of coordination. The CEMR, however, is a classic international umbrella organization consisting of national sections; its activities are based on the modus of cooperation. Finally, we conclude the article with some reflections about the potentials and the constraints which apply to each type of organization.

History meets Politics: Overcoming Interdisciplinary Volapük in Research on the EU

This article surveys recent political science literature on the EU, which draws upon its history. It addresses its shortcomings from an interdisciplinary perspective before proceeding to discuss current historical scholarship on the EU. It argues that this research can – inter alia – help to test neo-functionalist theoretical assumptions, understand the origins of bargaining as a multi-level game, explore competing institutionalist assumptions empirically, and introduce a temporal dimension into the study of networks in and as EU governance. It is high time that history-sensitive political scientists and social science-literate contemporary historians make more of the unexplored opportunities of interdisciplinary co-operation.

A first experimental test of multilevel game theory: the PD case

The prisoner's dilemma (PD) is played by two players in each of two groups. The two groups compete for an external prize whose allocation is determined by the degree of within-group coordination. The experimental evidence supports the predictions of multilevel game theory well.

Informal Governance in the European Union

Informal Governance in the European Union, Christiansen, Thomas and Simona Piattoni, eds., Celtenham (UK) and Northampton, MA (USA): Edward Elgar, 2003, pp. viii, 274.The nature of governance in the European Union (EU), the production of authoritative decisions through a plurality of actors and institutional arrangements, has been at the centre of recent scholarly debates. While at first sight many of its institutions resemble their national counterparts the EU seems to have established a system of governance sui generis with modes of decision-making that reflect the distinct institutional distribution of power and the complex multi-level game of accommodating interests in the regional, national and European arena. Thomas Christiansen and Simona Piattoni have focused on one critical aspect of this evolving mode of decision-making, namely, the role of informal governance. It is defined as the operation of networks and actors pursuing common goals through regular, though not codified and not publicly sanctioned exchanges in the institutional context of the EU.

FORMALIZATION OF MULTI-LEVEL GAMES

The article presents multilevel game theory, as a generalization of conventional single-level game theory as it has developed since von Neumann and Morgenstern (1944). We define a multilevel game structure, multilevel games, payoffs and distribution rules, upward feasible strategies and the solution concept multilevel Nash equilibrium (MNE) in such games. A MNE must be, for each player, a best reply against itself with respect to alternative strategies that may have other players deviate as well, in contrast to the NE for conventional games where simultaneous deviations by more than one player are not considered. Although every pure or mixed MNE must give the same outcome as a NE of the extensive form representation, a NE is not necessarily a MNE. It is shown that a MNE need not exist in pure or mixed strategies and, if it does, it may not be unique. In the former case, the multilevel structure is considered unmaintainable.

Gendering government: feminist engagement with the state in Australia and Canada

Acknowledgments Acronyms 1 Gender and Political Institutions in Australia and Canada 2 Feminists in Australia and Canada: Identities, Ideas, Strategies, and Structures 3 The Feminist Electoral Project: Working against the Grain 4 The Femocrat Strategy: Challenging Bureaucratic Norms and Structures 5 Feminists and the Constitutional and Legal Realms: Creating New Spaces 6 Feminists and Federalism: Playing the Multilevel Game 7 Feminists and Institutions: A Two-Way Street References Index

Civil Society in The Multi-Level Game of Foreign Economic Policy: The Case of The French Government in The Multilateral Agreement On Investment

This article explores two questions surrounding the Multilateral Agreement on Investment (MAI) (1995 - 1998): whether policy outputs are the product of actors’ interactions with structure, and, whether an actor is a simple reactor to structural constraints. Focusing on two perspectives of an actor’s recognition of his or her objectives, and actors’ proactive actions, this paper argues that civil society was not merely a reactor to the structural powers. Nor was it simply a prisoner to the structural environment. Instead, the paper contends that civil society was a proactive agent that transformed the structural contexts through the cognitive shift.

Corporatist Governance and Europeanisation: No Future in the Multi-level Game?

This article argues that against all odds, the corporatist inclusion of the major societal interests in public decision-making is still a relevant governance mechanism in the European multi-level system. At the national level, a diversity of systems continues to operate. At least in some cases, corporatist arrangements (which tend to be austerity- and supply-side oriented) were prompted by the establishment of the EC Internal Market and the EMU. At the European level, the fragmented EU system encompasses significant differences among policy areas, including -- against frequent expectations -- corporatist patterns, too (notably in social policy). It seems that corporatist governance still has a role to play, especially in the context of implementing and 'legitimising' the politics of the EMU.

A value for mixed action-set games

We extend the Aumann-Shapley value to mixed action-set games, i.e., multilevel TU games where there are simultaneously two types of players: discrete players that possess a finite number of activity levels in which they can join a coalition, and continuous players that possess a continuum of levels.

Learning in multilevel games with incomplete information. II

Multilevel games are abstractions of situations where decision makers are distributed in a network environment. In Part I of this paper, the authors present several of the challenging problems that arise in the analysis of multilevel games. In this paper a specific set up is considered where the two games being played are zero-sum games and where the decision makers use the linear reward-inaction algorithm of stochastic learning automata. It is shown that the effective game matrix is decided by the willingness and the ability to cooperate and is a convex combination of two zero-sum game matrices. Analysis of the properties of this effective game matrix and the convergence of the decision process shows that players tend toward noncooperation in these specific environments. Simulation results illustrate this noncooperative behavior.

Learning in multilevel games with incomplete information. I

A model is presented of learning automata playing stochastic games at two levels. The high level represents the choice of the game environment and corresponds to a group decision. The low level represents the choice of action within the selected game environment. Both of these decision processes are affected by delays in the information state due to inherent latencies or to the delayed broadcast of state changes. Analysis of the intrinsic properties of this Markov process is presented along with simulated iterative behavior and expected iterative behavior. The results show that simulation agrees with expected behavior for small step lengths in the iterative map. A Feigenbaum diagram and numerical computation of the Lyapunov exponents show that, for very small penalty parameters, the system exhibits chaotic behavior.

'Issue-systems', 'multi-level games' and the analysis of the EU's external commercial and associated policies: a research agenda

This article considers how a particular combination of existing conceptual or heuristic approaches drawn from international relations theory-the 'issue-systems' framework and an adapted 'two-level game' model- might be brought to the empirical investigation of the European Union (EU) as an international actor and, more specifically, to the analysis of the policy-making and governance processes that shape and define the EU's external commercial and associated policies. It is proposed that the use of these frameworks in the analysis of the EU's external policy processes might provide a basis for tackling some of the broader questions concerning the nature and significance of the EU as a governance system and international actor in the world economic and political arena.

Solution of multilevel coalition dynamical games

Solution of multilevel coalition dynamical games

How and Why Bureaucrats Control their Governance Structure

This article assumes that bureaucrats, like other actors, follow their interests. However, it is also recognized that bureaucrats in political environments face a multilevel game situation with unstable property rights, where priorities between institutional position and more pecuniary goods, e.g. budget maximization, especially in reform situations have to be made. Thus, bureaucrats realize that in order to obtain the latter, the precondition is a secured institutional position and that this position has to be obtained through a bargaining process involving transaction costs, externally due to negotiations with the political principals, and internally through union organization. Empirically, the phenomenon it examined in the case of the Danish day care system which went through a reform period during the late eighties and early nineties. It suggests that although demand for day care rose significantly during this period, day care workers (and their unions) worked for – and succeeded in – securing their institutional position.

Ethnic Conflict and Three-Level Games: Turks, Kurds, and Foreign Actors

AbstractNational and ethnic conflict have assumed new prominence in world politics. This article builds upon Robert Putnam's model of multi-level games to assess both the dynamics of conflict and conditions favoring settlement in the case of the on-going battle between the Turkish government and Kurdish separatists. In this case, interaction among issues and forces at inter-ethnic, domestic politics, and international levels affect prospects for a negotiated settlement. Particularly crucial elements have been the structure of Turkey's government and the constraints on free expression. These factors severely limit the chances to resolve the dual Prisoners' Dilemma and find a means to achieve mutual cooperation.

Stability of adaptive search in multi-level games under delayed information

Distributed decision makers are modeled as players in a game with two levels. High level decisions concern the game environment and determine the willingness of the players to form a coalition (or group). Low level decisions involve the actions to be implemented within the chosen environment. Coalition and action strategies are determined by probability distributions which are updated using learning automata schemes. The payoffs are also probabilistic and there is uncertainty in the state vector since information is delayed. The goal is to reach equilibrium in both levels of decision making. The results show the conditions for instability, based on the age of information, and a trade-off between optimality and stability.

Extensions of coalition games

We consider a class of multilevel coalition games, with each game formed as the union of traditional cooperative and coalition games. Between-level interactions are described by a sequence of such games with different sets of reward functions.