Title: Studying Political Violence Using Game Theory Models : Research Approaches and Assumptions Author: Mateusz Wajzer, Monika Cukier-Syguła Citation style: Wajzer Mateusz, Cukier-Syguła Monika. (2020). Studying Political Violence Using Game Theory Models : Research Approaches and Assumptions. "Polish Political Science Yearbook" Vol. 49, iss. 2 (2020), s. 143-157, doi 10.15804/ppsy2020208 POLISH POLITICAL SCIENCE YEARBOOK, vol. 49(2) (2020), pp. 143–157 DOI: https://doi.org/10.15804/ppsy2020208 PL ISSN 0208-7375 www.czasopisma.marszalek.com.pl/10-15804/ppsy Mateusz Wajzer University of Silesia in Katowice, Faculty of Social Sciences (Poland) ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3108-883X e-mail:
[email protected] Monika Cukier-Syguła University of Silesia in Katowice, Faculty of Social Sciences (Poland) ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6211-3500 e-mail:
[email protected] Studying Political Violence Using Game Theory Models: Research Approaches and Assumptions Abstract: The purpose of the paper is to concisely present basic applications of game theory models for a scientific description of political violence. The paper is divided into four parts. The first part discusses the key theoretical issues including: the assumption of the players’ rationality, the assumption of the players’ common knowledge of their rationality, the Nash equilibrium concept, Pareto optimality, the Nash arbitration scheme and the concept of evo- lutionarily stable strategies. The second and third parts contain examples of uses of selected models of classical and evolutionary games in the studies on political violence. The follow- ing two interaction schemes were used to that end: the Prisoner’s Dilemma and Chicken.