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 levels chosen and opt for the preferred country. Does it sound familiar? Hopefully so, because the game could be regarded as a modified all-pay auction in which the good to be auctioned is Crimea and Sevastopol, the auctioneer are Crimean voters, and the bidders...
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 an extensive game with simultaneous moves which may supply us with verifiable predictions about equilibrium strategies of the players and their outcomes.
Players
It has become a truism to say that international relations (and politics in general)...
... force a policy change or overthrow the government. I am wondering if there are circumstances in which mass action could lead to more desirable social outcomes than moderately unfair elections, and below I give a brief answer using main insights from mechanism design and social choice (all math omitted).
Choice functions
Most protests turn against presidents or governments headed by them. Thus, it is sufficient to analyze the properties of plurality voting, a social choice function used to select ...
