The Evolution of Cooperation, Robert Axelrod
Background information about the author and the book
Robert Axelrod is an American political scientist currently teaching Public Policies and Political Sciences at the University of Michigan, where he is the Walgreen Professor for the Study of Human Understanding. After graduating in Mathematics from the University of Chicago, he studied at Yale University, where he obtained a MBA and a PhD in Political Science. Axelrod has received countless awards and honours, such as membership in the National Academy of Sciences and the National Medal of Science, the United States’ “highest honor for scientific achievement and leadership”.
He is best known for The Evolution of Cooperation, an interdisciplinary work on how cooperation can emerge and persist in a predominantly non-cooperative environment, and what forms it takes. Summary The Evolution of Cooperation is divided into five parts, including an introduction, a conclusion, and three middle parts, each subdivided into chapters tackling different aspects of cooperation. Axelrod first introduces the book with an account of cooperation, a problematic notion at the foundation of all civilisations. The rationale behind this book is to provide an answer to a fundamental question: “Under what conditions will cooperation emerge in a world of egoists without central authority?”. Axelrod then describes and explains a particular model of game theory from which his conclusions will be drawn, the Prisoner’s dilemma. The Prisoner’s Dilemma involves a situation of conflict and cooperation between two agents, whose individual rationality encourages mutual defection and can thus lead both players to a worse outcome than otherwise possible with mutual cooperation. In the second part of the book, the author explores the emergence and persistence of cooperation through the analysis of the best strategy in a context of iterated Prisoner’s Dilemma. To determine the best decision rule, he studies the results of a computer tournament opposing different strategies submitted by game theorists from a wide range of disciplines (psychology, economics, political science, mathematics, sociology). Tit-for-tat, which consists in cooperation on the first move and strict reciprocity for the next ones, stands out as the strategy giving the best payoff in many different environments, but not necessarily in all of them. Axelrod thus deduces that there is no absolute best decision rule that exists independently of the opponent’s strategy, and instead identifies four properties favouring the success of a strategy: niceness (cooperating as long as the other player does), retaliation (discouraging defection and exploitation by the other player), forgiveness (avoiding escalation and restoring mutual cooperation), and clarity (strategy intelligible enough for the other player to adapt to the pattern of behaviour for long-term cooperation). Therefore, even in world of egoists without central authority, cooperation based on reciprocity can emerge if under suitable conditions. Looking into the theoretical viability and long-term robustness of a cooperative strategy, Axelrod adds the need for a sufficiently large chance for players to meet again in order to raise the stakes of future interaction. In the following part, Axelrod studies two concrete examples of real-life cooperation situations involving a Prisoner’s Dilemma setting to demonstrate the wide application of these results. The first one is the “live and let live” system during WW1, a tacit cooperation between soldiers of opposing small units not to kill each other. This wartime cooperation based upon reciprocity between antagonists shows that no friendship is required for cooperation. Going even further with his second example, bacteria, Axelrod argues that foresight is not needed either. Bacteria too can cooperate based …show more content…
The narration, written from the author’s point of view in a simple but precise and clear style, makes the reasoning accessible to a wide audience ranging from biologists and social scientists, organisations and nations, to simply interestested amateurs. The ideas are organised topically, and take a progressive approach. What’s especially interesting about cooperation theory is that it not only affects every one of us in our daily choices, but also raises concerns relevant on a global scale, such as arms race, nuclear proliferation, and crisis management. The argumentation is in fact made especially convincing by quantitative and qualitative data, as well as diverse examples to which historians, politicians, and biologists alike can relate: WW1 trench warfare, US-USSR relations, birds and bacteria,
Background information about the author and the book
Robert Axelrod is an American political scientist currently teaching Public Policies and Political Sciences at the University of Michigan, where he is the Walgreen Professor for the Study of Human Understanding. After graduating in Mathematics from the University of Chicago, he studied at Yale University, where he obtained a MBA and a PhD in Political Science. Axelrod has received countless awards and honours, such as membership in the National Academy of Sciences and the National Medal of Science, the United States’ “highest honor for scientific achievement and leadership”.
He is best known for The Evolution of Cooperation, an interdisciplinary work on how cooperation can emerge and persist in a predominantly non-cooperative environment, and what forms it takes. Summary The Evolution of Cooperation is divided into five parts, including an introduction, a conclusion, and three middle parts, each subdivided into chapters tackling different aspects of cooperation. Axelrod first introduces the book with an account of cooperation, a problematic notion at the foundation of all civilisations. The rationale behind this book is to provide an answer to a fundamental question: “Under what conditions will cooperation emerge in a world of egoists without central authority?”. Axelrod then describes and explains a particular model of game theory from which his conclusions will be drawn, the Prisoner’s dilemma. The Prisoner’s Dilemma involves a situation of conflict and cooperation between two agents, whose individual rationality encourages mutual defection and can thus lead both players to a worse outcome than otherwise possible with mutual cooperation. In the second part of the book, the author explores the emergence and persistence of cooperation through the analysis of the best strategy in a context of iterated Prisoner’s Dilemma. To determine the best decision rule, he studies the results of a computer tournament opposing different strategies submitted by game theorists from a wide range of disciplines (psychology, economics, political science, mathematics, sociology). Tit-for-tat, which consists in cooperation on the first move and strict reciprocity for the next ones, stands out as the strategy giving the best payoff in many different environments, but not necessarily in all of them. Axelrod thus deduces that there is no absolute best decision rule that exists independently of the opponent’s strategy, and instead identifies four properties favouring the success of a strategy: niceness (cooperating as long as the other player does), retaliation (discouraging defection and exploitation by the other player), forgiveness (avoiding escalation and restoring mutual cooperation), and clarity (strategy intelligible enough for the other player to adapt to the pattern of behaviour for long-term cooperation). Therefore, even in world of egoists without central authority, cooperation based on reciprocity can emerge if under suitable conditions. Looking into the theoretical viability and long-term robustness of a cooperative strategy, Axelrod adds the need for a sufficiently large chance for players to meet again in order to raise the stakes of future interaction. In the following part, Axelrod studies two concrete examples of real-life cooperation situations involving a Prisoner’s Dilemma setting to demonstrate the wide application of these results. The first one is the “live and let live” system during WW1, a tacit cooperation between soldiers of opposing small units not to kill each other. This wartime cooperation based upon reciprocity between antagonists shows that no friendship is required for cooperation. Going even further with his second example, bacteria, Axelrod argues that foresight is not needed either. Bacteria too can cooperate based …show more content…
The narration, written from the author’s point of view in a simple but precise and clear style, makes the reasoning accessible to a wide audience ranging from biologists and social scientists, organisations and nations, to simply interestested amateurs. The ideas are organised topically, and take a progressive approach. What’s especially interesting about cooperation theory is that it not only affects every one of us in our daily choices, but also raises concerns relevant on a global scale, such as arms race, nuclear proliferation, and crisis management. The argumentation is in fact made especially convincing by quantitative and qualitative data, as well as diverse examples to which historians, politicians, and biologists alike can relate: WW1 trench warfare, US-USSR relations, birds and bacteria,