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Social Stability and Catastrophe Risk: Lessons From the Stag Hunt

Author

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  • Michael R. Powers

    (Temple University's Fox School of Business, Tsinghua Universitys School of Economics and Management, michael.powers@temple.edu)

  • Zhan Shen

    (Shenzhen Ping An Bank, shenzhan001@pingan.com.cn, samson.shen@gmail.com)

Abstract

Had the destruction and suffering visited upon New Orleans by Hurricane Katrina been the result of a terrorist attack, it would have been very successful — not because of the number of innocent lives lost or amount of property destroyed, but rather because of the breakdown of the social order. What better possible outcome could a terrorist envision than planting seeds of doubt regarding the willingness and ability of individuals and government to fulfill their respective roles in the `social contract'? In this article, we employ a class of symmetric, ordinal 2 × 2 games — including the frequently studied Prisoner's Dilemma, Chicken, and Stag Hunt — to model the stability of the social contract in the face of catastrophic changes in social relations. In two alternative analyses, we find that the Stag Hunt provides a relatively stable and efficient normative model for society. These results offer useful insights into the pre- and post-event management of catastrophe risks, especially large-scale terrorist attacks designed to disrupt the social order.

Suggested Citation

  • Michael R. Powers & Zhan Shen, 2008. "Social Stability and Catastrophe Risk: Lessons From the Stag Hunt," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 20(4), pages 477-497, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:jothpo:v:20:y:2008:i:4:p:477-497
    DOI: 10.1177/0951629808093777
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. repec:cup:cbooks:9780521555838 is not listed on IDEAS
    2. Ken Binmore, 1998. "Game Theory and the Social Contract - Vol. 2: Just Playing," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 2, number 0262024446, April.
    3. Ken Binmore, 1994. "Game Theory and the Social Contract, Volume 1: Playing Fair," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262023636, April.
    4. Vanderschraaf, Peter, 1998. "The Informal Game Theory in Hume's Account of Convention," Economics and Philosophy, Cambridge University Press, vol. 14(2), pages 215-247, October.
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    Cited by:

    1. Khemraj, Tarron, 2019. "Two ethnic security dilemmas and their economic origin," MPRA Paper 101263, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    2. Michael R. Powers, 2009. "Constant-sum sampling: an apology for statistics' “original sin”," Journal of Risk Finance, Emerald Group Publishing, vol. 10(4), pages 317-320, August.

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