Modeling the Strategic Effects of Risk and Perceptions in Linkage Politics

Abstract

We develop a new linkage model for multiple issue politics and negotiations, one that extends previous single and multidimensional work by Bueno de Mesquita, Stokman, Morgan, and Morrow by explicitly capturing risk in a spatial multidimensional analysis. In order to address the critiques of previous linkage models as cooperatively based, we allow risk to vary simultaneously across issues, which yields non-convex indifference curves. Consequently, our model incorporates a new perceptive and conflictual component in multiple issue contexts. This approach allows the possibility of misjudgment and misperceptions in behavior. We show that linkage solutions in a political context may or may not be taken advantage of by the participants, nor do they need be Pareto optimal. Besides more accurately modeling the negotiation process, these valuable insights yield strategies for unilateral maximization of linkages not captured by previous linkage approaches.