Exploring Conflicts and Protests Through the Lens of Game Theory

Abstract

This dissertation aims to study conflicts and protests using a game-theoretic setup. It contains six chapters. Chapter 1 is the introduction. Chapter 2 gives a brief review of the related literature. Chapter 3 explores conflicts in the presence of revenge and third party intervention using a game theoretic setup. In chapter 4, I propose a revengecapability function to study the strategic behaviour of the conflicting parties. In chapter 5, I develop a signaling game between the government and protesters to study the phenomenon of protests in the presence of an external shock like the pandemic. Chapter 6 concludes the dissertation. Chapter 3 aims to study conflicts in the presence of revenge and third-party interventions using a game theoretic setup where the intervention decision of the third party is endogeneous. This model explores parametric restrictions under which a third party decides to intervene (either as an ally of one of the conflicting parties or as an ‘idealist’ aiming to reduce overall conflict levels) and its repercussions on associated conflict levels. This chapter also presents narrative evidences of some real-life conflicts that amply exhibit the two forces of third-party intervention and revenge. In chapter 4, I propose a revenge-capability function that endogenously incorporates the incapacitation effect and study the strategic behaviour of the conflicting parties. Using a two-period game of conflict this chapter tries to show how desire and capabilities of the combatants to exact revenge can influence the intensity of the conflict. This chapter shows the following: how the strategies of the conflicting parties are influenced by the different effects of revenge; how the stronger combatant is in a favourable position in the conflict and can prevent its opponent from going into second period conflict out of revenge; when the combatants are equally strong the intensity of the conflict starts falling with time. It also lays out some real-life conflicts and existing empirical work to support the results. In chapter 5, I develop a signaling game where the protesters’ type is imperfectly observed by the government to study when it will be optimal for the protesters to protest in response to a government action and for the government to use a repression strategy when there is an external shock like the pandemic. It shows the following; how the virus spread influences the strategies of the players; how the intensity of protests changes with the level of the virus spread; compares the no-pandemic equilibria with the pandemic equilibria and lastly analyses the parametric conditions under which different separating and pooling equilibria holds.