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Bridging the Political Divide in America with Game Theory

Just over a week ago, Noah Smith published an article in Bloomberg titled “A Game-Theory Solution for a Fractured America.” In his article, Smith analyzes the current political divide in America through a Game-Theory lens. Smith frames the situation so not to differentiate Republicans from Democrats, other than that the two are parts of opposing sides. This generalization allows one to view American politics as a symmetric two player game. In fact, the author relates this game to a fundamental example of Game Theory described in lecture, the prisoner’s dilemma.

In class, we only ever examined the game as being played one time; however, Smith points out the political game between Republicans and Democrats is really more of an ongoing game, constantly being played and replayed. In a real-life prisoner’s dilemma, each player is faced with one decision that determines their fate, and as a result, inevitably chooses a strategy that has a bad outcome for both players. The author proposes that Americans currently view politics in the same way. I agree with this, in that dangerously one-sided media sources as well as geographically and technologically driven echo-chambers make it easy to become focused on short-term outcomes and neglect the bigger picture. Because of this, America keeps has continued in a self-perpetuating cycle that does more harm than good.

One topic yet to be discussed in lecture—repeated games—provides a potential solution. A repeated game is one that is played multiple times and each player chooses their strategy knowing this. In a repeated game version of the prisoner’s dilemma, this actually changes the outcome and is far more beneficial to the players. Since politics really is a repeated game, Smith argues that Americans should view it as such and that this could actually bridge the divide in America.

While I find the implications of this to be quite important, I am especially intrigued by the broader impact this has on decision-making. Without changing any part of the game’s players, strategies, or payoffs, a shift in perspective from short to long term can have a drastic effect on the decisions players make. This is an almost philosophical point, and certainly not one I would expect to find through game theory. Next time I am faced with a difficult decision, I’ll be sure to look at how different perspectives might influence my payoff for the better or worse.

Article: https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-09-08/a-game-theory-solution-for-a-fractured-america

Reference on Repeated Games: https://economics.mit.edu/files/4754

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