Dear all,

Happy new year! The first COMSOC Seminar of the year will be given by Bernhard von Stengel from the LSE, next week on Thursday at 16:00. Bernhard will talk about "Game Theory and Politics". This is a first version of a talk he is developing for a general-interest audience, so should be fun and easily accessible to everyone (expect lots of Brexit puns and the like). I'm including the abstract below and hope to see you next week.

As always, for more information on the COMSOC Seminar please consult http://www.illc.uva.nl/~ulle/seminar/.

All the best, Ulle

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Speaker: Bernhard von Stengel (London) Title: Game Theory and Politics Date and time: Thursday 16 January 2020, 16:00 Location: F1.15, Science Park 107, Amsterdam

Abstract:

Game theory is the 'science of interaction'. This talk will explain some insights of game theory and apply them to current politics.

Of course politicians play games. They offer cheap promises that they think they don't have to fulfil. Such as a "simple" in-out referendum on EU membership in Britain. That game plan went wrong. Game theory may have helped, with tools for thinking ahead and concepts of strategy, to counter the wishful thinking that seems to drive such decisions. Game theory can also help explain the incentive problems of climate change and reasons for democratic deadlock. A game-theoretic analysis shows the importance of the rules of the game, for example in electoral systems. The aim of the talk is to highlight some uses and mis-uses of game theory and decision theory with examples from politics, for a general audience.