Homework: Social Applications of the Hawk-Dove Game

 

Figure by Mathew O. Jackson. A graphical representation of the Hawk-Dove model. (Jackson, Mathew. A Brief Introduction to the Basics of Game Theory. Stanford University, 2011, ssrn_id2665873_code161894.pdf)

    I would like to explore the Hawk and Dove rational-choice game as a tool to investigate the tragedy of the commons and structures of government. The Hawk-Dove game describes a conflict between two players; They can choose to be gentle like a dove or aggressive like a hawk. If both players choose to be doves, then it symbolizes a compromise and both get a medium score. If they both decide to be hawks, they kill each other and no one gets anything. If one plays dove and the other hawk, the one that plays hawk gets a high score and the dove just barely survives with a low score. The predicted outcome is for a mix of Hawk and Dove players. In other words, if player 1 picks dove, player 2 will want to play hawk to get more points over player 1. And if player 1 picks hawk, player 2 will want to pick dove to at least survive the game. 

    This model can be applied to many people living off of the same resource. One example is the tragedy of the commons, most commonly described with the fishing problem. If many fishermen have access to the same lake, they will all try to fish as much as possible. However, if everyone fishes too much, the population will die and there will be no more for anyone. This is why there are laws in place to force all fishermen to play as Dove so everyone can make some profit while maintaining the fish population. However, these laws must take into account that there will always be some fishermen that will overfish because everyone else isn’t. 

    The Hawk-Dove model also applies to government. If two princes choose Hawk and claim the throne, they can cause chaos through the whole kingdom. If all eligible kings play Hawk and have an even ability to get the throne, no one will be king because they would kill each other. If one decides not to take the throne, he won't be king but will at least be alive. Communism can be seen as all players picking Dove because everyone agrees to give all the power to the people. However, this system is hard to accomplish because some will be able to take advantage of the system and steal power. Modern democracy takes into account that a system of government will have a mix of Hawk and Dove players. We allow some people to play Hawk by electing them into a system with built-in checks and balances so that everyone else can comfortably choose to play dove. By controlling the Hawk players with other branches of government, we hopefully prevent all the Hawk players from imploding the system and make the game to be more favorable for the Dove. In other words, the payout for the mixed player strategy is more even between the player types under democracy than other types of government because we assume the mixed strategy will happen.