International Relations and Rational Choice
This series of entries is intended to show that the study of international relations may be fruitful without 'home-grown' theories like liberalism or realism if we switch to methods that share the core of rational choice theory (e.g. game theory and social network analysis).
New entries
Suppose you're the world's policeman watching two states fight. Engaging directly is too expensive, but you can send weapons to one party which will improve its chances of winning. Should you do so? If yes, whom to help? If you only…
Game structure By design, the game is implemented in two stages. At stage 1, Ukraine and Russia choose levels of financial transfers and military involvement not knowing each other’s choice. At stage 2, Crimean voters observe the…
Game theory can say something non-trivial about any strategic interaction, and separatism movements are by no means an exception. In the following, I model the strife between Russian and Ukrainian governments over the Crimean Republic and Sevastopol as…
In most countries the first-best mechanism of political choice, i.e. fair and competitive elections, is unfeasible. Thus, citizens are left to choose from either participating in rigged elections whose outcome is likely distorted in favor of incumbents…
Corruption is commonly perceived as a threat to social welfare, but it is not always true. In many situations, as I am going to show, corrupted behavior of individuals can allow for more efficient resource allocations than the law-abiding strategy. To…
ABSTRACT This paper applies the model by Jackson and Wolinsky [1996] to analyze co-authorship connections among Russian international relations scholars. By using data on almost a thousand researchers, I check whether the co-author network is…
The ultimate goal of science is and ought to be, to offer the method of improving control over the external world, to pave the way from the present state of affairs to the most preferred one. The field of international relations must not be an…
Poll conducted
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In your opinion, what are the US long-term goals for Russia?
U.S. wants to establish partnership relations with Russia on condition that it meets the U.S. requirements 33 (31%) U.S. wants to deter Russia’s military and political activity 30 (28%) U.S. wants to dissolve Russia 24 (22%) U.S. wants to establish alliance relations with Russia under the US conditions to rival China 21 (19%)
