(G) Swedberg 2001 - Sociology and Game Theory

Sociology and Game Theory: Contemporary and Historical Perspectives
Author(s): Richard Swedberg

Source: Theory and Society, Vol. 30, No. 3 (Jun., 2001), pp. 301-335
Published by: Springer
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Sociology and game theory: Contemporary and

historical perspectives
RICHARD SWEDBERG
Stockholm University, richard.swedberg@sociology. su.se
Since the mid-1980s game theory has become increasingly popular

among sociologists and a number of interesting studies have been
produced. This development, however, has not been accompanied by
much comment in the profession nor by a general discussion of game
theory from a sociological perspective; and it would therefore seem
appropriate that such a discussion should take place. This article has as
its main goal to contribute to a broad discussion of game theory and
also to raise the question of whether it would be possible to develop a
distinctly sociological version of game theory. By a broad discussion, I
mean a discussion that is not limited to technical game theory but also
includes games more generally and other approaches to analyzing
reality in terms of games (what I shall call "game-related sociology").
By the expression a distinctly sociological version of game theory, I
mean a version of game theory that is such that it will both draw on and
renew the sociological tradition - just like economists have developed
their own version of game theory and used it to improve economic
analysis. This article is a companion piece to an earlier study in which
the major works in game theory are analyzed from the perspective of
sociology.' In this second work, however, the focus has been shifted
from game theory itself to the use that sociologists have made of game
theory. Both studies are non-technical and built on the premise that
game theory is of interest also to sociologists who are not trained in
technical game theory.
The article is structured in the following manner. I first look at the
early use of game theory by sociologists, which roughly covers the years
from the 1950s to the mid-1970s ("old sociological game theory"). This
is followed by a presentation of the current revival of game theory, which
started in the mid-1980s ("new sociological game theory"). The article
ends with a discussion, based on what sociologists have accomplished
Theory and Society 30: 301-335, 2001.
? 2001 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands.

302
since the 1950s,when it comes to game theory.I also make the suggestion that one way for sociologists to use game theory would be to
conceptualizeit as a way to explore counterfactuals.Using counterfactualsin this way,I argue,may be a way of anchoringgame theory in
empiricalrealityand therebycountersome of its artificiality.
A small warning should be issued before the readerembarks on the
pages to come. The account of the way that sociologists have used
game theory is somewhatlaboriousand filledwith longish accountsof
variousstudiesand arguments,somethingthat makesthe readingtaxing
at times.Therearetwo reasonswhyI nonethelesshavechosento proceed
in this manner and have not produceda conventionalsurvey article,
which would be easier for the reader to get through.The first is that
much of the materialon game theory and games in sociology may be
unknownto many sociologists and hence deservesto be explicatedin
some detail. The second is that this articlehas as its main purpose to
contributeto a debate, and for this reason it may be helpfulto have a
fairlydetailedaccountof the variouspositions involved.2
A remarkon the terms"gametheory"and "game,"as these are used in
this article,is also in place. By the formeris meant the mathematical
type of analysisthat was introducedinto social sciencethroughTheory
of Games and Economic Behavior (1944) by John von Neumann and
Oskar Morgenstern,and which has been furtherdeveloped by such

people as JohnNash, JohnHarsanyi,and RichardSelten.3"Interactive
decision theory"may describewhat game theory is about more accurately than what its conventionalname does.4 "Games,"on the other
hand, can be definedas recreationalactivitiesthat are often interactive
and playedaccordingto specificrules.5"Game"is also often used as a
metaphorfor many other human activities.There exists no necessary
logical connection between game theory and ordinary games; they
simply both contain the word "game."It is, however, also true that
sociologists and other social scientistshave often made referencesto
game theory in their studiesof games and vice versa.
The early use of game theory by sociologists (the 1950s to the
mid-1970s)
Most commentatorsagreethat game theoryhas had some verydistinct

ups and downsin its popularity.6
Alreadyin the mid-1950s,for example,
Luce and Raiff stated in theirwell-knownGamesand Decisionsthat,

303
thatgametheorysolvedinnumerInitiallytherewas a naivebandwagon-feeling
able problemsof sociology and economics,or at the least, that it made their
solutiona practicalmatterof a few years'work.That has not turnedout to be
the case.7
In this review of Games and Decisions for the American Sociological

Review, Herbert Simon expressed his agreement with the judgment of
Luce and Raiffa on this particular point; and also other commentators
have noted the "over-enthusiasm" that characterized the first years of
work on game theory.8 When Luce and Raiffa spoke of the hope that
game theory could solve a large number of problems in "sociology," it
is not clear if they thought that sociologists, economists, or just game
theoreticians in general would be the ones who produced this "sociology." In any case, it is clear that game-theoretical work by sociologists
also has had its ups and downs, even if these have not been identical to
the ones in mainstream game theory. If one were to hazard a guess, it
would be that there has been a lag of something like ten years in the
reaction of the sociologists. This, in any case, fits their initial reaction
to game theory, which can be dated to the mid-1950s, and also the
current revival of game theory in sociology, which began in the mid1980s.
Two early events took place in the mid-1950s that can be said to sum up
the reactions of U.S. sociology to game theory during its initial phase.9
One was that Luce and Raiffa's famous Games and Decisions (1957)
was produced at Columbia University, under the auspices of Paul
Lazarsfeld; and the other was that Jessie Bernard in 1954 produced an
important programmatic statement on game theory in the American
Journal of Sociology.10Raiffa and Luce had been engaged by Lazarsfeld
in the Behavioral Models Project, which was part of the Bureau for
Applied Social Research at Columbia University and had as its main
task to introduce sociologists to the use of mathematical thinking in
the social sciences. It was also at Columbia that Games and Decisions
was conceived; and when this work was published, it was presented as
a product of the Behavioral Models Project.
But despite these favorable conditions for a reception of game theory
at Columbia, sociologists were not interested. Lazarsfeld himself does
not appear to have seen any particular use for game theory in sociology.
When, for example, he and Neil Henry in the mid-1960s published a
volume called Readings in Mathematical Social Science, they included
a game-theoretical study by Martin Shubik but cautiously stated apropos game theory that "this newly conceived branch of mathematics

304
received its impetus from problems in economics; its application to
other sciences is [however] still much under debate."ll Robert K.
Merton - Columbia's main theoretician in sociology during the period
- does not mention game theory in any of the three editions of Social
Theory and Social Structure (1949, 1957, 1968) and has recently confirmed that "I was and am wholly unconnected with game theory."12
And Raiffa himself has said that when he was at the Bureau for
Applied Social Research in the 1950s, he was never asked for advice
about game theory by any of the sociologists.13 James Coleman, who
was a student during this period at Columbia, has similarly remarked
that, "I did have some exposure ... to game-theoretical ideas, at the
Bureau for Applied Social Research, both through exposure to von
Neumann and Morgenstern's book, and because it was then and there
[at Columbia] that Duncan Luce and Howard Raiffa were working on
Games and Decisions.... Yet, I did not see much value in carrying over
the economist's paradigm of rational action into sociology."14
Other key people at the main sociology departments in the United
States during the 1950s and the 1960s also appear to have shown little,
if any, interest in game theory. This was, for example, the case with
Talcott Parsons, who during this period was generally regarded as the
leading sociologist. According to Neil Smelser, "[Parsons] was certainly
aware of the work of von Neumann and Morgenstern, and mentioned
it from time to time, but never as being of special theoretical interest to
his work." 5 The people who were attracted to game theory and wanted
to use it in their own work appear, in contrast, to have been little known
in the profession and were often at an early stage of their career.
The pioneer: Jessie Bernard

Jessie Bernard (1903-1996) was introduced to game theory around
1950, and in 1954 she published an article on game theory in the
American Journal of Sociology, which can be characterized as a general
introduction for sociologists to game theory as well as a programmatic
article. The tone in the article is very enthusiastic, and it is argued that
game theory has much to offer sociology, in particular the analysis of
social conflict and social organization. To realize "the great potential"
of game theory in this regard, it is suggested that sociologists make use
of two-person zero-sum games - but even more so of the concept of
coalition and the idea that "standards of behavior" are important in
determining which of several solutions will be chosen.16 It is of great

305
importance, Bernard stresses, that sociologists learn to translate sociological problems into games. Bernard's treatment is non-mathematical,
and she reassures the reader that one can use game theory, just like
statistics, without a full understanding of the underlying theorems.
Game theory is mainly of help for making predictions, and nothing is
said about the problem of verifying the results of game-theoretical
analyses with the help of data. Bernard, as we soon shall see, actually
envisioned much of the sociological work as being done before the
game was ready to be played.
One of the many interesting points that Bernard makes in her programmatic article is that "sociologists ought to be enlisted in the conceptualization of the theory."17 She also notes that "some modification" of
game theory in its current shape is needed if it is to be useful in
sociology.18 The reason for demanding these changes, she explains, is
that sociological phenomena present their own distinct problems. Institutions, for example, affect the way a game is played. There is also the
fact that culture affects what is happening in a society and changes the
rules of the game. Another difference between game theory in general
and sociological game theory, according to Bernard, is the difficulty that
the latter has in determining exactly what are the rules and the payoffs.
This is often so laborious that one can say that the most difficult part
in the analysis for the sociologist comes before the game-theoretical
exercise: "The invention or discovery of the strategies may have involved
creativity of the highest order; the calculation or discovery of the payoff
function may have required a tremendous research effort."19In many
cases, Bernard adds, it may also be impossible to determine what the
payoff for a specific strategy is or to compare the payoff of one strategy
to that of another. On the whole, however, Bernard was optimistic about
solving these difficulties; and in this respect she especially set her hope
to the discovery of new forms of mathematics.20
After her programmatic article in AJS, Bernard in particular tried to
use game theory to analyze social conflicts. All in all, she wrote two
general articles in this area and two specialized ones, both dealing with
the conflicts between men and women.21 In one of the general articles,
she tried to analyze social problems from a game-theoretical viewpoint.
Her general conclusion was that while game theory did not solve all the
difficulties involved, it did help to clarify matters quite a bit: "Sometimes
[game] theory makes its chief contribution by simply offering a conceptual framework within which to think about the problem under
consideration."22 In her second general article, Bernard expressed

306
great enthusiasm for the work of Thomas Schelling and stated that
"the whole of [game] theory has been recast by his work."23 She was
especially impressed by Schelling's ideas about tacit coordination, mixed
games, and communication. The issue of the relationship of game theory
to empirical reality is not mentioned, but she notes with great approval
in her discussion of Schelling that
In his hands game theory, which began as, in effect, a theory of protection
against interaction, has converged with the social-interactionist school.
Schelling and Goffman represent the meeting point.24
There was little discussion among sociologists of Bernard's article,

when it appeared in the mid-1950s. She herself would continue to
work for about a decade with game theory, but then she moved on to
other matters. There appear to have been two main reasons for this. On
the one hand, she found it increasingly hard to analyze the problems she
was interested in with the help of game theory, especially gender relations. And, on the other hand, the mathematics involved was discouragingly difficult. In an autobiographical article she tells the following
anecdote from the days when she was very interested in game theory:
When in a faculty seminar [on game theory] in the mathematics department
one of the men put an equation on the board that traversed two walls of the
classroom. Everyone followed him admiringly. Then, after several minutes,
one member of the class raised his hand and pointed to one particular point on
the long equation. The others studied it a moment, and then, without a word
being said by any one, they all nodded their heads in agreement. Not a word
was needed. This was clearly a kind of communication I could never master.25
Otherpioneers (Phillip Bonacich, Theodore Caplow, William Gamson,

and Gerald Marwell)
In her programmatic article from 1954, Bernard had singled out the
concept of coalition as especially suitable for sociologists to work with,
and this was also the opinion of many other game theorists. In most
games, to repeat, it is not possible to determine one specific outcome,
according to von Neumann and Morgenstern, among other reasons
because "standards of behavior" affect the outcome. In the 1950s and
the 1960s quite a bit of research on coalitions was indeed carried out,
and the two key issues were the following: which players would join
together with whom, and how were the proceeds to be split? This
research was conducted by several different types of social scientists by experimental social psychologists, sociologists, and political scien-

307
tists. The impact of game theory on this type of work was, however,
uneven. While political scientists like William Riker drew heavily on
game theory, social psychologists did not do so at all. Sociologists can
be placed somewhere in the middle, as the examples of the two most
prominent sociologists in this genre show, namely Theodore Caplow
and William Gamson.
Theodore Caplow was much more influenced by Simmel's work on
triads and by what was going on in small group research than by game
theory. Still, it is clear from his work that he took the analysis of van
Neumann and Morgenstern quite seriously and that he was especially
interested in the role of initial differences of power between the players.26
Since von Neumann and Morgenstern did not consider this issue, and
since Caplow thought that it was absolutely central to the analysis of
coalitions, he soon lost interest in game theory.27
William Gamson, on the other hand, was much more interested in
game theory than Caplow, and states in retrospect, "I was very involved
and read everything that seemed relevant in game theory in the late
1950s."28This knowledge of game theory comes out very clearly in an
influential ASR article from 1961, in which Gamson very carefully goes
through what Theory of Games has to say about coalitions.29 He also
takes a close look at what people like Vickrey and Luce had done to
narrow down the range of possible solutions, but nonetheless argues
that game theory is basically "inadequate" to provide assistance in
research on coalitions, due to the profusion of solutions that it suggests.30 Gamson's main thesis about coalitions - that each player will
demand from a coalition roughly the same as her share of the initial
resources - was also of his own invention. Finally, it should be noted
that Gamson, just as Caplow, did not discuss the issue of empirical
verification of game-theoretical analyses. When someone like William
Riker in the late 1960s concluded that "much more energy has been
expended on the elaboration of the theory of coalitions than on the
verification of it," this is a criticism that also can be aimed at much of
the sociological research on coalitions.31
Two sociologists who began publishing on game theory a little later
than Gamson and Caplow, but who are still active and contribute to
sociological game theory are George Marwell and Phillip Bonacich.
The former was especially interested in cooperative games and his
early work culminated in the book Cooperation (1975). In his very first
article on game theory, however, Marwell had touched on the prisoner's

308
dilemma, a topic that was also central to Phillip Bonacich's first publications.32 Bonacich's work from this period can be characterized as experiments on the N-person prisoner's dilemma, centered around social
dilemma problems.33 After this work in the late 1960s and early 1970s,
Bonacich says, he lost interest in game theory and began to do work on
networks.34 As in the case of Marwell, however, there will be reason to
return to his subsequent work on game theory later on in this article.
The broader discussion and the use of game theory and games in
sociology (1950s to the mid-1970s)
It would be wrong to limit the discussion of the use of game theory in
sociology during the period between the 1950s and the mid-1970s to
the studies of Jessie Bernard and the rest of the pioneers. Several other
sociologists also drew on game theory, in one way or another, or discussed the role of games in sociology more generally. Thomas Scheff,
for example, tried to develop a theory of coordination, which was very
much influenced by Thomas Schelling's work.35 Bernard noted in the
early 1960s that "games are definitely 'in'" and "everyone appears to be
getting into the act."36 This popularity would continue at least until
the early 1980s, when Clifford Geertz stated that,
The game analogy is both increasingly popular in contemporary social
theory and increasingly in need of critical examination. The impetus for
seeing one or another sort of social behavior as one or another sort of game
has come from a number of sources (not excluding, perhaps, the prominence
of spectator sports in mass society). But the most important are Wittgenstein's conception of forms of life as language games, Huizinga's ludic view
of culture, and the new strategics of von Neumann's and Morgenstern's
Theory of Games and Economic Behavior. From Wittgenstein has come the
notion of intentional action as "following a rule"; from Huizinga, of play as
the paradigm form of collective life; from von Neumann and Morgenstern, of
social behavior as a reciprocative maneuvering toward distributive payoffs.37
Leaving the impact of Wittgenstein and Huizinga to the side,38 it is

nonetheless clear that the idea of games and game theory was used in a
number of different ways by sociologists during these years. While
Bernard and Gamson, for example, favored a low-tech version of
game theory, there were several other ways in which games and game
theory were used as well (see Table 1). A few laboratory experiments
involving game theory were carried out, and there was quite a bit of
interest in using games as a general metaphor. The role of games in
social life was studied, and attempts were made to use games as a

309
Table 1. The different uses of game theory and game-related analysis in sociology,
1950-2000
Type of game
theory or
game-related
approach
General characteristic
Examples of studies
Topics
1. High-tech
game
theory
Standard game theory

is used; high technical
level (deductive
mathematics,
simulation models)
Raub (1988), Raub

and Weesie (1990),
Heckathorn (1988,
1989), Macy and
Skvoretz (1988),
Montgomery (1998)
Social dilemmas
related to
2. Low-tech
Basic logic and the

conceptual language
of game theory is used,
including the payoff
matrix
Bernard (1964, 1968),

Gamson (1961),
Boudon (1979),
Coleman (1990)
Conflicts,
coalitions,
coordination,
education, norms
Vocabulary of game
theory is used - in a
non-technical and
Goffman (1961),
Elias (1970), Crozier
and Thoenig (1975),
Crozier (1976),
Burawoy (1979)
Power, work,
organizations,
prisoner's dilemma,
strategic interaction
Special games are used

to analyze social
events
Vinacke and Arkoff

(1954), Boorman
(1967), Coleman
(1967, 1969)
Pachisii, wei-ch'i,
collective decisions
games
Games that can be

found in society are
Anderson and Moore

(1960), Goffman
(1961), Leifer (1988,
1991)
Games in general,
e.g. chess
Bonacich (1972,
1976), Snijders and
Raub (1998)
Power, prisoner's
dilemma,
cooperation
game
theory
3. Games as a
general
metaphor
metaphorical way
(game, player, strategy)
4. Special
games used
analytically
5. The study of
games in
society
6. Laboratory
studies
analyzed
Experiments with
people
cooperation,
collective action,
norms, etc.
Game theory proper is covered by categories 1 and 2; and game-related sociology

especially by categories 3-5 but also by 6.39 One can roughly distinguish between two
periods in the use of game theory by sociologists. During the late 1950s to the mid- 1970s, a
small number of sociologists became interested in game theory and started to use it and/or
discuss it. Then came a lull. From the late 1980s and onwards the use of game theory has
revived in sociology, drawing heavily on developments in mainstream game theory. The
first generation of sociologists who were interested in game theory used a low-tech form,
was very interested in the game metaphor, sometimes constructed its own games, and
studied the kind of games that can be found in society. The second generation (mid-1980s-)
typically uses a high-tech form of game theory, is very interested in social dilemmas, and
has begun to use laboratory experiments. A few critiques of mainstream game theory by
sociologists also exist. For full references to the items cited in the table, see note.40

310
device to develop sociological theory further. To this should finally also
be added that even though game theory during these years never got a
real foothold in mainstream sociology, it was nevertheless discussed
quite a bit.
Much of this material on games and game theory is mainly of historical interest today, but there also exist some studies that are very much
worth reading and that deserve to become part of today's discussion
of game theory among sociologists. Three of the most original contributions from this period are those by Michel Crozier, Erving Goffman,
and Scott Boorman, and I present these in some detail. At least a
mention should also be made of some other studies - such as James
Coleman's work on collective decision games and their use in education,
Norbert Elias's analysis of power as a game on different levels, and
various studies in industrial sociology, from Donald Roy to Michael
Burawoy,which look at work in the factories as a way of "making out."41
Example #1: Michel Crozier on organizations

My first example of an interesting early work in which sociologists
draw on game theory in a broad sense is Michel Crozier's work on
organizations. The general idea here is to use game as a metaphor and
to introduce some key terms from game theory into sociology. As soon
will become apparent, there are several advantages to drawing on game
theory and the idea of a game in this way. For one thing, the very idea
of looking at some social phenomenon as if it were a game, may throw
new light on it. Secondly, the concept of a game can be viewed as antideterministic in the sense that the actor is assumed to be able to devise
several different strategies - not just one - in each situation. And thirdly,
the idea of a game brings out the interactional quality of social phenomena with great force. As opposed to low-tech game theory, those who use
games as a metaphor usually do not try to map out all the possible
strategies and present the reader with a complete pay-off matrix.
Through The Bureaucratic Phenomenon (1963), Crozier quickly established himself as a leading sociological expert on organizations, and in
this work there is a sprinkling of references to games and game theory,
especially to power as a game.42 In a couple of articles from the 1970s,
Crozier expanded on these references and suggested that organization
theory was in need of a new paradigm, centered on games. He describes
the new research paradigm in the following way:

311
An organization can thus be considered as a set of games, more or less
explicitly defined, between groups of partners who have to play with each
other. These games are played according to some informal rules which
cannot be easily predicted from the prescribed roles of the formal structure.
One can discover, however, these rules, as well as the pay-offs and the
possible rational strategies of the participants, by analyzing the players'
recurrent behaviour. This could eventually be formalized according to rough
game theory models.43
To Crozier, the idea of system is very important and also that the
players can be individuals as well as groups. Depending on one's
position in the system, he states, different problems will emerge, and
games are conceptualized as a way of dealing with these problems.
Sometimes the players may try to maximize, but at other times their
strategies will rather grow out of power tensions. Crozier argues that
the existing theories of power are outmoded and that the concept of
power needs to be reconceptualized with the help of the notion of
game. He also emphasizes the advantages of a comparative approach
to games and notes that it would help the researcher to realize that
there often exist several solutions to a problem. While it was Crozier's
ambition to reach a stage where the analysis of organizations could be
formalized, he also thought that this goal was still far off:
Focusing on games [in organizational studies] has the disadvantage of making formalizing much more difficult and of preventing for quite some time
any kind of measurement, at least at the organizational level. We have, I
think, to accept this and to try to move first from literary description to
some kind of qualitative assessment instead of requiring immediately some
irrelevant statistical sophistication.44
Example #2: Erving Goffman on games and strategic interaction

My second example of sociologists who reacted in some interesting
way to game theory is Erving Goffman. Clifford Geertz has stated that
Goffman's work "rests ... almost entirely on the game analogy."45This
is an exaggeration, but one can indeed find references to games and
game theory in quite a few of Goffman's studies; it is also clear that he
had studied the works of von Neumann-Morgenstern and Schelling
very carefully. Goffman especially discusses games and game theory in
two essays from the 1960s, "Fun in Games" and "Strategic Interaction."46 In the former, Goffman says that he wants to analyze games
in order to see what they can tell you about society in general; and this
essay can therefore be seen as an example of what I have called "games

312
as a generalmetaphor"(seeTable1).The second essay is more difficult
to put a label on, but what Goffman basically does is to evaluate
Schelling'sidea that there exists a specific social phenomenonthat is
characterizedby "strategicinteraction."
In "Fun in Games"Goffman suggests that the analysis of games can
throw some light on the analysis of interaction in general. As an
example of this, he cites the tendency in many games to exclude a
numberof aspects of realityas irrelevantto the game. These "rulesof
irrelevance"are, according to Goffman, also common in society at
large; and as an example he cites the rules in a market, accordingto
which buyers and sellers ignore each other's attributes and instead
focus on what is being traded.The way that game theory goes about
the analysis, Goffman continues, can be quite helpful - but he also
adds that "a game-theoretical approach also involves ... important
limitationsfor the studyof face-to-faceinteractions."47

In "StrategicInteraction"Goffmanarguesthat Schellingin TheStrategy
of Conflict(1960)has identifiedan area of social life that sociology has
more or less missed,namelysituationsin whichthe actors are mutually
awareof each other, whereevery move that someone makes affectsall
the actors, and where the decision that Actor A makes depends on
what Actor B thinks that she will do. Goffman states that the kind of
situations that game theory draws on - "miniature scenarios of a very
farfetched kind" - can be quite helpful. For the empirical study of
strategicinteraction,however,"too much is left out" in game theory.48

For one thing, game theorists ignore the existence of norms or treat
these in a simplistic and formalistic manner. Game theory is also
unableto handlea numberof other empiricalphenomena:
Persons often don't know what game they are in or whom they are playing
for until they have already played. Even when they know about their own
position, they may be unclear as to whom, if anybody, they are playing
against, and, if anyone, what his game is, let alone his framework of possible
moves. Knowing their own possible moves, they may be quite unable to make
any estimate of the likelihood of the various outcomes or the value to be
placed on each of them. And bad moves often lead not to clear-cut penalties as
such but rather to diffuse and straggling undesired consequences - consequences that result when persons do something that throws them out of gear
with the social system. Of course, these various difficulties can be dealt with
by approximating the possible outcomes along with the value and likelihood
of each, and casting the result in a game matrix; but while this is justified as
an exercise, the approximations may have (and be felt to have), woefully little
relation to the facts.49

313
Example #3: Scott Boorman on wei-ch'i and Chinese revolutionary
strategy
The third example I have chosen to illustrate sociologists' concern with
games and game theory during this period is a little-known study by
Scott Boorman, The Protracted Game (1969). The basic argument in this
work is that the Chinese game of wei-ch'i (known in the West as "go")
has inspired the military strategy of Mao Zedong and therefore can help
to explain the route to power of the Chinese Communist Party. According to Boorman, wei-ch'i can itself be seen as a kind of "game theory":
wei-ch'i may be more realisticallyused as an analogic model of [Chinese
Communist]strategythan any purely theoreticalstructuregeneratedby a
Westernsocial scientist.... If indeedwei-ch'iand ChineseCommuniststrategy are productsof the same strategictradition,wei-ch'imay be more realisticallyused as an analog model of that strategythan any purelytheoretical
structuregeneratedby a Westernsocial scientist.50
Another fascinating quality of Boorman's study is that he has chosen

to analyze a game that clearly has influenced empirical reality, namely
the military strategy of the Chinese Communist Party. Equally evocative
is his argument that wei-ch'i represents a more sophisticated form of
"game theory" than anything that the West has come up with, including
the ideas of von Neumann and Morgenstern:
The wei-ch'ianalogyis a type of modelstill rarein the social sciences:flexible
yet formalistic.On the one hand, becauseit is not bound by the restrictions
of the axiom-theoremmethodor the abilityof mathematiciansto integratea
differentialequation,wei-ch'ianalysisof a strategicsystemcan go far beyond
the limitsof present-day,or evenpotentiallyobtainable,social scienceformalism. At the same time, wei-ch'i provideswhat might be termed the most
importantsingle featureof the formalistapproach:a logical and consistent
point of view from which to analyze one facet of Chinese civilizationand
decision-making.These dual characteristicscontributeto the significanceof
wei-ch'i as a simple, efficient, and accurate similation model of specific
motifsof ChineseCommunistinsurgentwarfare.51
The current revival of game theory in sociology (mid-1980s and

onwards)
There exists quite a bit of difference between the kind of game-theoretical sociology that was popular from the 1950s until the mid-1970s,
and the one that can be found today. The old form of game-theoretical
sociology was basically low-tech, while the current one is high-tech.

314
Game theory itself was also very different in the 1950s and the 1960s
from what it is today. Iterated games, evolutionary game theory, and
computer-based tournaments are all innovations that have been made
since the days of Jessie Bernard and the other pioneers.
In between the old and the new sociological game theory there was
something like a decade, during which very little happened. Exactly
why this is the case is not clear; perhaps it was this period that Daniel
Bell had in mind when he noted that game theory, after years of excitment, had begun to lose its attractiveness because its major points had
been absorbed.52 In any case, some interesting game-related activities
did take place among sociologists during the years from the late 1970s
to the mid-1980s. Especially the following deserve to be mentioned:
James Coleman's continued work on various types of games, Raymond
Boudon's argument for game theory as a way of generating models,
and the discussion of game theory among sociologists, set off by Jon
Elster's plea for a game-theoretical version of Marxism (the reader who
wants to know more about these studies is referred to note 53).53
The currentgeneration of high-tech game theorists in sociology

(Werner Raub, Douglas Heckathorn, Michael Macy, and others)
Somewhere around the mid-1980s a new type of game-theoretical
studies started to appear in sociology (see Table 2). While in the 1950s
there existed probably only a handful of sociologists who were able to
understand technical game theory, the situation was quite different by
the 1980s and even more so today.54 Sociologists of a new breed have
emerged during the last few decades in sociology who are fully capable
of understanding recent game theory and using it for purposes of their
own. To draw exclusively on mathematical game theory in the analysis is,
however, not that common among sociologists; and some other method
is often used, such as simulation or experiments. Connected to this is
the tendency among today's game-theoretical sociologists to have close
ties to other fields of sociology, which demand a high technical capacity,
such as rational choice sociology, social dilemma research, social exchange theory, or mathematical sociology more generally.
It is also possible to notice differences between old and new gametheoretical sociology on a number of other points than technical skill.
In the 1950s and the 1960s, people who were interested in game theory
were, for example, much more marginal in the profession than they are

315
Table 2. Old and new game-theoretical sociology
Old game-theoretical sociology
New game-theoretical sociology
Type of game
theory
Low-tech (concepts of game

theory used, but not the
mathematics)
High-tech (mainstream game

theory used, including iterated
games and simulations)
Time period
1950s to mid-1970s
Mid-1980s and onwards
Central topics
Topics mainly inspired by von

Neumann-Morgenstern and
Schelling, such as coalitions,
conflicts, coordination,
commitment and communication
Topics that have grown out of

the work of Nash and often are
social dilemma related, such as
cooperation, collective action
and norms
Key people
Jessie Bernard, Philip Bonacich,

William Gamson
Douglas Heckathorn, Michael

Macy, Werner Raub, Jeroen
Weesie, Trond Peterson
Examples of
studies
Bernard (1964), Gamson (1961),

Scheff (1967)
Raub (1988), Raub and Weesie

(1990), Heckathorn (1988,
1989)
Place of game
theory in the
Very marginal, practically

non-existing
Seen as a technique, used e.g.

in rational choice sociology,
social dilemma research and
mathematical sociology
Response to
game theory
in the profession
Scattered but lively discussion of

games and game theory (e.g.
Goffman [1961], Crozier [1976]
and Coleman [1969])
Occasional discussion (e.g.

Hechter [1990], White [1992]
and Stinchcombe [1997])
Strengths
Introduction into sociology of

mathematics and an analytical
perspective; very broad
discussion of games and game
theory
High technical skill; further

development of an analytical
perspective
Weaknesses
Low technical capacity; little

discussion of the link to empirical
reality
Little discussion of the link to

empirical reality; little general
discussion of games and game
theory
profession
Comment: For full references to the items cited in the table, see note.55
today. They also had fewer links to practitioners of game theory in the
neighboring social sciences, such as economics, political science, and
psychology. Finally, the topics that have been broached in old and new
game-theoretical sociology are quite different. The first generation of
sociologists was mainly interested in areas of research that had been

316
initiated by von Neumann-Morgenstern, such as coalitions and conflicts.
They were also fascinated by Thomas Schelling's attempt to re-orient
game theory and by his discussion of such topics as coordination,
commitment, and communication. Today's sociologists, on the other
hand, mainly work on topics that have grown out of the work of John
Nash, such as prisoner's dilemma, cooperation, and collective action.
A different way of describing the kind of work that characterizes
current game-theoretical research among sociologists would be to say
that it falls in the general category of social dilemma research.56(This
does not cover all of it; there is, for example, a growing literature that
attempts to link up game theory to social exchange theory57). Social
dilemma research, it should also be noted, is interdisciplinary and has
its origin in the 1970s. Social psychologists, economists, and political
scientists have all been considerably more active within this field of
research than sociologists, who furthermore were late-comers - with
the exception of Gerald Marwell and Ruth Ames.58 According to
Douglas Heckathorn and Michael Macy - two of the most active and
interesting members of the current generation of game-theoretical
sociologists - all of sociology can actually be seen as social dilemmarelated.59 A social dilemma can roughly be defined as a situation in
which there is a sharp conflict between individual rationality and
collective rationality. A more formal definition would be that a social
dilemma exists when strategies, which are individually dominant, converge toward a deficient equilibrium.60
The following three ideal typical situations are often taken as the point
of departure for research on social dilemmas: the tragedy of the commons, prisoner's dilemma, and the problem of creating a public good.
The first of these situations is associated with a famous article from the
1960s by Garret Hardin, and describes how a number of herders
destroy their livelihood by individually increasing the number of livestock that graze on a common pasture.61The prisoner's dilemma had
already been identified around 1950 and grew out of non-cooperative
game theory of the Nash version.62 It covers the situation in which
two prisoners choose a course of action that is individually rational,
but which makes both of them end up much worse than if they had
cooperated. The difficulty of creating a public good can finally be
illustrated by Mancur Olson's The Logic of Collective Action (1965),
with its famous analysis of the free rider.

317
Research on social dilemmas mainly attempts to establish under which
conditions it would be possible to let collective rationality triumph
over individual rationality. From a sociological point of view one can
say that social dilemmas are typically involved in the creation of order,
in matters of cooperation, and in getting collective action going. The
literature on social dilemmas is sometimes divided up according to the
way in which the solution to the dilemma is sought: by affecting the
motivation of the actors (motivational solutions), by changing the structure of the situation (structural solutions), and through the strategies of
the actors (strategic solutions). The line between structural solutions
and strategic solutions is somewhat fluent. Sociologists have mainly
been interested in structural and strategic solutions, but occasionally
also in motivational solutions.
Social psychologists, as one would predict, have been very active in
researching motivational solutions, and they have among other things
established that people have different orientations to social dilemmas
and also tend to cast other people in the same category to which they
see themselves as belonging ("individualists," "cooperators," and
"competitors"). The basic solution to social dilemmas, from this perspective, is to change the motivation of the actors from egoistic to
altruistic. Research that claims that people in reality are more cooperative than the theory assumes belongs to this category as well.63And so
does research that is more sociological in nature, and that looks at such
issues as group identity and various ways of strengthening this type of
identity, for example through intergroup competition.64
Structural solutions involve, for example, a change of incentives and
are often preferred by economists. Actors, it is argued, are likely to
change their behavior in the direction of cooperation, if the reward for
doing so is increased. Another structural solution would be to change
the size of the group, since it is more difficult to be altruistic in a large
group than in a small one.65 It may also be possible to introduce a
coercive organization or norms that ensure a collectively rational
solution.66
In the strategic solutions it is assumed that the actors remain egoistic but also that they are aware that it is in their own interest to behave in
an altruistic or cooperative manner. According to a well-known review
of experimental findings, the average actor in a prisoner's dilemma
soon comes to realize the absurdity of the situation and is willing to
cooperate, if others also are willing to do so.67 The problem then

318
becomes how trust is established, and a number of different ways of
proceeding are possible at this point. One would be to post hostages,
and another that the actors get to know the past behavior of one another,
or in some other way can discern potentially cooperative partners.68One
particularly famous strategy of this type is tit-for-tat, which was invented
by Anatol Rapoport and popularized by Robert Axelrod in The Evolution of Cooperation (1984). The actor starts out by being cooperative
and then continues to do so - as long as the other actor cooperates.
Sociologists have explored many aspects of the tit-for-tat strategy and
more generally also the role of learning in iterated games.69
For those sociologists who have not been trained in game theory, much
of the work that has been carried out within the social dilemma paradigm may seem very technical and hard to follow. This, however,
should not prevent a realization that some excellent sociology has been
produced in recent game-theoretical sociology, which deserves general
appreciation within the profession, and to be integrated into the sociological tradition. It can be added that many of the authors who do
high-tech game-theoretical studies today often try to show the general
sociological relevance of their analyses, and to indicate how their work
is connected to earlier studies with a similar problematique and to the
sociological enterprise as a whole. Three very interesting game-theoretical studies that illustrate this are Douglas Heckathorn's study of collective sanctions, Jeroen Weesie and Werner Ruab's study of the posting
of hostages, and Michael Macy and John Skvoretz' study of trust and
cooperation among strangers.70
The broader discussion and use of game theory and games in sociology
(mid-1980s and onwards)
There has not been much discussion in sociology of the second wave of
game-theoretical sociology, including its most popular form, analyses
of social dilemmas with the help of iterated games. This is true despite
the fact that game-theoretical sociology has resulted in quite a few
studies in highly visible places, such as the American Journal of Sociology and the American Sociological Review. There has also been much
less discussion of game theory in general and of related issues, as
compared to the situation from the 1950s to the mid-1970s.71 Today's
game-theoretical sociologists are also, it appears, not very interested in
what earlier sociologists had to say about games and game theory, such
as Goffman, Crozier, and so on.

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Whatever there has been of debate about the current version of game
theory in sociology, which is very much centered around social dilemmas
and especially the prisoner's dilemma, is the following. Arthur Stinchcombe raised the question early, to cite the title of his article: "Is the
Prisoner's Dilemma All of Sociology?"72 His answer was a sharp
"no," and the reason for this is that prisoner's dilemmas are routinely
solved by people in their everyday lives, without them ever being aware
of the existence of a dilemma. The only time that people do become
conscious of a prisoner's dilemma, and are able to formulate something like payoffs, Stinchcombe says, is when they are confronted with
a new situation - and then they are usually able to solve the dilemma.3
A much more radical critique of the standard version of prisoner's
dilemma games can be found in two studies by Michael Hechter and
James Montgomery, which also allow us to draw a distinction between
prisoner's dilemma as a conceptual tool and as a description of a
situation, in which the actors behave in a rational manner. Michael
Hechter has made a head-on attack on the use of iterated prisoner
dilemma games as a tool to solve collective action problems.74 The
assumption that the players in game-theoretical analyses have perfect
knowledge, Hechter argues, is highly unrealistic; and to use iteration as
a way of solving all problems deserves to be called the "game theorists'
version of the economists' infamous 'assume the can opener' ploy."25
The way to proceed, if one wants to solve collective action problems in
real life, Hechter continues, is through "observation of people's actual
behavior in the field."76This may be an untidy way to proceed, he notes,
but if it is done in combination with a rational choice approach, it will
yield much better results than iterated games.
While Hechter wants to retain the idea of rational choice but get rid of
the method of solving prisoner's dilemma situations through iteration,
James Montgomery has recently advocated the opposite strategy.77The
standard version of a prisoner's dilemma, he argues, is much too
closely connected to the idea of rational actors and ignores experimental evidence. In reality, a high percentage of the actors in a prisoner's
dilemma do cooperate; and when the situation is repeated, the level
of cooperation tends to go down, not up.78 As opposed to Hechter,
however, Montgomery does not see this as a reason for not using a
repeated-game model of the prisoner's dilemma type. Montgomery's
position can be characterized as one that is critical of rational choice,
but positive to the use of modelling techniques in sociology, including
the use of game theoretical models.79

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Montgomery's position that game theory is hampered by the assumptions of rational choice can also be found in Harrison White's work.
Harrison White has not made use of game theory in his own work, but
has been very influential in mathematical sociology and as an advocate
of structural analysis in sociology. In his major theoretical statement,
Identity and Control (1992), he, however, concisely sums up his view of
game theory in the following manner:
It could be argued that the crippling of game theory is the worst effect of
rational-choice theory.... At its introduction by von Neumann, game theory
had the potential of refounding the theory of social action. Unfortunately, it
devolved into the hands of economic theorists. Except in the work of Schelling,
who eschews systematic theory or modelling, the results for many years were
increasingly arid exercises. New developments may be afoot, but effective
game theory has to concern the induction of identities and disciplines, of
social organization.80
While there has been a general paucity of game-related sociology during

the current period of high-tech game theory, there do exist some exceptions, and the most interesting of these is Eric Leifer's study of chess.81
Leifer's general argument is that one has to distinguish between solving
a game and playing a game, and that the two demand very different
skills from the players. In a two-person zero-sum game you do not
need to play the game, and according to von Neumann and Morgenstern the solution (a mixed strategy) can just as well be implemented by
a third party. The reason for this, Leifer explains, is that when you
solve a game, the options have been narrowed down and can easily be
apprehended and surveyed by the two players, say in the form of a
payoff matrix. But when you play a complicated game, such as chess,
the options are usually so manifold that only the player herself understands clearly why a specific move was made. A complicated game - in
contrast to the games that are used in traditional game theory - always
makes room for the skillful player as well as for the poor player, and
the two play the game very differently. The poor player uses the same
strategy to play the game as she uses to solve the game, that is, a
routinized and "rational" strategy that is easily understood by a skillful
opponent. The latter, however, uses a very different approach while
playing the game and when finishing it off, and consequently draws on
two different skills. Leifer's conclusion is that "game theory seeks
solutions that would eliminate the need to actually play the game and
hence cannot explain why some games are played with skills that are
widely admired and emulated." 82That social games are much closer to
a game like chess, than to two-person zero-sum games, is something
that is implied, if not explicitly stated by Leifer.

321
Concluding remarks: Opening up the discussion of game theory and introducing counterfactuals into it
With respect to the future, my feeling is that sociologists don't know game theory and economists, who
do, are hopelessly naive about social structures. The
best work remains to be done by those who have
mastered both disciplines.
Phillip Bonacich83
The main purpose of this article, to repeat, is to open up the discussion

of game theory in contemporary sociology. The following three questions
seem central to address:
* What, if anything, have game theory and game-related perspectives
contributed to sociology?
* Is not the game-theoretical perspective much too artificial for an
empirical science such as sociology?
* Would it be possible to develop a distinctly sociological version of
game theory?
As the reader soon will notice, most of my answers to these questions
grow out of the material that has already been presented in this article.
The exception is when I discuss the possibility of renewing sociological
game theory, and here I raise the question if one perhaps could use
game theory to counter sociology's obsession with what is, by analyzing
what could have happened - what choice was open to the actor(s) at a
specific point in time. My argument on this point is that game theory
could help to explore these possibilities, and that it therefore can be seen
as a tool to map out and investigate a certain type of counterfactual.
My answer to the first question - What, if anything, have game theory
and game-related perspectives contributed to sociology? - is that they
have in fact made several important contributions. Game theory has
expanded the repertoire of sociological theory as well as increased its
analytical potential; it has added to the growth of mathematical sociology; and it has established important links between sociologists, on
the one hand, and economists and other social scientists who are
interested in game theory, on the other. Game theory has also helped
to introduce an actor-based type of explanation, as opposed to the one
that is centered around variables. Finally, game theory and gamerelated perspectives have inspired some excellent sociology.

322
It deserves to be emphasized that game theory has an intrinsic value in
its capacity as a theory - a theory centered around the idea of a game,
with players who take each other's actions into account and develop
strategies with payoffs that can be represented in the form of a matrix.
Thomas Schelling has even argued that it is precisely these "rudiments
[which] may be of most interest to the social scientists." 84
One option for the sociologist, in other words, would be to settle for a
low-tech version of game theory, of the kind that Schelling advocates.
Game theory also has the capacity to simplify and crystallize out what
is essential in a situation. To cite Peter Blau: "a matrix grossly oversimplifies the social situation [but] it does highlight the implications of
various strategies."85 It is futhermore clear that game theory has
helped mathematical sociology to advance in several ways. One is to
have added a new tool to its arsenal, based on a very different type of
mathematics; and another to have increased the interest for simulations in contemporary sociology.86 There is finally the fact that game
theory has helped to produce some excellent studies in sociology. And
this game theory has done, both in its classical-technical version and in
its game-related versions; and as an example of this I would primarily
point to the works of Goffman, Boorman, and Crozier in the first
generation of game-theoretical sociology, and to the works of Heckathorn, Macy, Raub, and Leifer in the second. A few other studies can
be added as well, especially those by Boudon and Coleman.
I also would argue that the full width of the contribution of game
theory to sociology first becomes visible when we look at not only
game theory proper, but also game-related studies. My own view is
that when von Neumann and Morgenstern invented game theory they
chose to focus on a few types of games and to handle these in very
specific ways. In reality, however, the whole area of games is extremely
suggestive and fruitful to explore for the sociologist - as the works of
Goffman, Coleman, Boorman, and many others testify to.
As to the second question that needs to be discussed - Is not the gametheoreticalperspectivefar too artificial to be of much value to an empirical
science such as sociology?- one answer has already been given, namely
that game theory has an intrinsic value as a theory, regardless of its
relationship to empirical reality. This answer, however, does not get to
the heart of the question, which may not be as easy to answer as it first
appears. Sociology is often presented as an empirical science - as a
Wirklichkeitswissenschaft (Weber) - and the traditional way of testing

323
a proposition, which has been derived from a theory, is to compare its
predictions to empirical reality, and see how well the two fit. This is in
principle also possible in studies drawing on game theory, as, for
example, Werner Raub and Gideon Keren have pointed out in their
argument that game theory can be seen as a "normative" as well as a
"descriptive" theory.87After having established that "the model has to
be tested with regard to how well it approximates actual behavior,"
Raub and Keren use experiments to test their theory of using hostages
to produce commitment.
Although it is rarely explicitly stated in the game-theoretical literature,
it seems easier to reproduce the kind of situations that game theory
studies in experiments than to locate them in reality. Trond Petersen,
for example, notes that "unfortunately, it has turned out to be very
difficult to do empirical work, in particular quantitative empirical
work, using GT models."88 While these difficulties must be openly
acknowledged, and also that they detract from the value of game theory
for an empirical science like sociology, they do not in my opinion
amount to an argument for the elimination of game theory from
sociology. The main strength of game theory lies elsewhere, mainly as
an analytical tool. Game theory, as Boudon says, is very good to raise
"questions of the why type" as opposed to "questions of the how much
type."89There is also the fact that the relationship between theory and
facts is considerably more difficult in sociology than is sometimes
acknowledged. Earlier in this article, I mentioned several studies that
illustrate this, such as Boorman's study that describes how a certain
kind of game theory came to be embodied in a military strategy. There
is also The Evolution of Cooperation by Axelrod, which is centered
around a number of tournaments in which the players were all skillful
game theorists - and where the gap between theory and fact was
consequently narrowed.
Game-theoretical studies by sociologists can also be more or less
related to actual empirical situations and use these as their point of
departure for establishing the strategies of the players, their payoffs, and
so on. While some studies start from a purely hypothetical situation,
others begin with an empirical puzzle or some counterintuitive fact.
Without ruling out the usefulness of the former way of proceeding, it
may well be that the latter is more congenial to sociology. As examples
of research that start out from an empirical puzzle, one can mention the
work of Boudon, Schelling, and to some extent Goffman. If we move
outside of sociology, a special mention should be made of behavioral

324
game theory and game theory as recently used by some economic
historians.90 My own argument about the use of game theory as a way
of countering sociology's obsession with what is, as opposed to what
could be, represents another way to relate game theory to empirical
reality.
Quite a bit can also be said in response to the third question - Wouldit
be possible to develop a distinctly sociological version of game theory? It
should first of all be noted that the expression "a sociological game
theory" can be interpreted in at least two different ways. On the one
hand, it can simply be used to describe the kind of game-theoretical
studies that sociologists have produced; and this is also the way that
this expression has been used until this point. But it may also mean
something quite different, namely a type of game theory that is distinctly sociological - just as there exists a mathematical version of
game theory, an economic version, and so on. Such a theory, it can be
argued, would have its own take on the tradition that begins with von
Neumann-Morgenstern, continues with Nash and so on until today. A
sociological version of game theory may, for example, be considerably
closer to the kind of game theory that Thomas Schelling tried to
elaborate in Strategy of Conflict (1960), than to the one that Nash
worked out in the early 1950s and that today has become the foundation
for economic game theory.91
What a truly sociological version of game theory would look like is
perhaps what most deserves a discussion. It is also a topic that demands
deeply innovative thinking rather than general arguments, drawn from
the past experiences of game-theoretical sociology. My own suggestion
in this context would be to argue for the use of game theory as a way to
explore counterfactuals.92 As I see it, sociology is by tradition far too
concerned with the way things have turned out or the one strategy that
was eventually chosen. As is well known, however, each social situation
could have ended differently; and what I argue for is that game theory
could perhaps be used as an instrument to explore these alternatives:
to map out the strategies involved and to establish the payoffs.
To use game theory as a method to explore counterfactuals may also
help to restore the proper role of choice to mainstream sociology.
Sociologists all too often present their actors as if there existed only
one way for these to proceed, because of the impact of social forces.
The fact that actors often do not know what choice to make, hesitate, and perhaps later think that they chose the wrong alternative is

325
often forgotten in mainstream sociology - to the detriment of its
realism.
What falls under the label "counterfactuals" in the literature, it
should also be noted, covers very different situations, and the ones
that I have in mind represent a distinct category, namely the alternative strategies of the actors themselves in a specific situation. This is
also the position that Weber takes in his well-known article on Eduard
Meyer:
The historical agent, to the extent that he is acting, as we are here assuming,
in a strictly "rational" way, takes into account those "conditions" of the
future course of events which interests him, which are "external" to him and,
as far as he knows, given in reality. He then, in his mind, fits into the causal
nexus various "possible" courses of action for himself, together with the
consequences to be anticipated from them in combination with those "external" conditions, in order to decide on one or another of the courses of action
appropriate to his "goal" in accordance with the "possible" outcomes which
he has worked out in his mind.93
Focussing on these ex ante strategies, rather than on the ex post result,

also makes it natural to incorporate a Verstehen dimension into the
analysis. Paying proper attention to the subjective dimension, as this is
experienced by the actors themselves, is unfortunately something that
has been much neglected in conventional game theory. If sociological
game theory, then, is not to end up as an artificial exercise - or as a
"puppet show," to use the colorful terminology of Alfred Schutz94 - it
is absolutely essential that the beliefs, ideas, and experiences of the
actors themselves are moved onto center stage.
Acknowledgments
For many useful suggestions, I would especially like to thank the
participants at seminars at the Departments of Sociology at Cornell
University and Stockholm University as well as at CNRS ("Networks
and Regulation") in Paris. For important information and much assistance I would also like to thank especially Patrik Aspers, Mie Augier,
Reza Azarian, Phillip Bonacich, Raymond Boudon, Michel Crozier,
Christofer Edling, Thomas Fararo, William Gamson, Douglas Heckathorn, Peter Hedstr6m, Thorbjorn Knudsen, Siegward Lindenberg,
Gerald Marwell, Robert K. Merton, James Montgomery, Michael
Macy, Victor Nee, Trond Petersen, Werner Raub, Wendelin Reich,
Thomas Schelling, Lars Udehn, and Hans Zetterberg. Financial sup-

326
port from the Social Behavior and Mechanisms Project, financed by
STINT in Sweden, is gratefully acknowledged.
Notes
1. Mie Augier and Richard Swedberg, "Game Theory and Sociology: Landmarks in
Game Theory from a Sociological Perspective," paper presented at the Conference
on "New Economic Sociology in Europe 2000," at Stockholm University, June 2-3,
2000.
2. While this article no doubt contains material of interest to the history of sociology
(which has ignored the relationship of game theory to sociology), it is not primarily
conceived as a contribution to this particular genre. Its main goal, to repeat, is
rather to contribute to the discussion of game theory in contemporary sociology.
3. For a brief history of game theory, see, e.g., R. J. Aumann, "Game Theory," 460482 in Vol. 2 of John Eatwell et al., editors, The New Palgrave. A Dictionary of
Economics (London: Macmillan, 1987); and for an easy-to-understand introduction
to game-theoretical analysis, see, e.g., David Kreps, Game Theory and Economic
Modelling (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1990).
4. Aumann, "Game Theory," 460.
5. See, e.g., Erving Goffman, "Fun in Games," 15-72, in Encounters: Two Studies in
the Sociology of Interaction (Penguin: Harmondsworth, [1961] 1972).
6. As one reviewer has remarked, it would have added to the value of this article if a
Social Science Citation analysis had been used to indicate the popularity (and lack
of popularity) of game theory among sociologists during various time periods. It
may be added that it is possible to find some relevant material when it comes to
game theory also in the works of the sociological classics - which, however, were all
written well before the birth of game theory. This is particularly true for Simmel's
comments on "social games" ("Gesellschaftsspiele"); Weber's analysis of the game
of skat; and Mead's discussion of games in relation to the formation of the self. See
Georg Simmel, "Sociability: An Example of Pure, or Formal Sociology (1911),"4950, in Kurt Wolff, editor, The Sociology of Georg Simmel (New York, The Free
Press, 1950); Max Weber, "Analysis of the Concept of a Rule: The Concept of a
'Rule of the Game,"' 98-143, in Critique of Stammler (New York: The Free Press,
[1907] 1977); and George Herbert Mead, Mind, Self and Society (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1934), 151-173. The relevance of especially Mead's ideas to
game theory has frequently been noted in the secondary literature; that of Simmel
only occasionally; and that of Weber not at all. See, e.g., Thomas Scheff, "ATheory
of Social Coordination Applicable to Mixed-Motive Games," Sociometry 30
(1967): 215-234; Alan Ross Anderson and Omar Khayyam Moore, "Autelic FolkModels," Sociological Quarterly 1 (1960): 203-216. Simmel essentially argues that
all types of interactions that exist in society can also be found in games - but
without the seriousness that attaches to interaction in reality. Weber notes that a
player of skat takes into account what the opponent does ("stragetic interaction,"
to use a post-Weberian term). He also points out that one can proceed in two
different ways, when analyzing the game of skat. One can either make a purely
conceptual analysis of games (roughly of the type that is found in marginal utility
analysis) - or one can analyze the way that games are played in actual reality.
Mead, finally, stresses the role that games play for the formation of the self: by

327
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
taking the role of other players in a game, the child develops her psyche. It may
finally be mentioned that also some anthropologists have been interested in game
theory. See in particular, Fredrik Barth, "Segmentary Opposition and the Theory
of Games: A study of Pathan Organization," The Journal of the Royal Antropological Institute 89 (1959): 5-21, and "Models of Social Organization, I-III" [and]
"Models Reconsidered," 32-104, in Vol. 1 of Process and Form of Social Life
(London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1981); Claude L6vi-Strauss, "The Mathematics
of Man," International Social Science Bulletin 6 (1954): 581-590, and "Social
Structure," 273-323, in Structural Anthropology (New York: Basic Books, 1963).
Duncan Luce and Howard Raiffa, Games and Decisions: Introduction and Critical
Survey (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1957), 10.
See Herbert Simon, "Review of R. Duncan Luce and Howard Raiffa, Games and
Decisions," American Sociological Review 23 (1958): 343. See also, e.g., Daniel Bell
in Richard Swedberg, Economics and Sociology (Princeton: Princeton University
Press, 1990), 223-224.
It is clear that game-theoretical sociology also has an interesting history in other
countries than the United States, such as France and the Netherlands. A nontechnical form of game theory was, for example, used in the 1970s by Sigward
Lindenberg and Reinhard Wippler at the Interuniversity Center for Sociological
Theory and Methodology (ISC), later to be followed by sophisticated game theory
by scholars such as Werner Raub and Jeroen Weesie. In France, many other
sociologists besides Crozier and Boudon (whose work is commented on in the text)
have carried out game-theoretical studies.
Jessie Bernard, "The Theory of Games of Strategy as a Modern Sociology of
Conflict," American Journal of Sociology 59 (1954), 411-424.
Paul Lazarsfeld and Neil Henry, editors, Readings in Mathematical Social Science
(Chicago: Science Research Associates, 1966), 11. Boudon, who was at Columbia
University in 1962-1963 on a Ford Foundation scholarship, has the following to say
on Lazarsfeld and game theory: "As far as I remember, Lazarsfeld never expressed
an interest in game theory during the many meetings I had with him over the years.
He appreciated Luce & Raiffa's book and recommended it. But he was interested in
it rather because it illustrated the interest of mathematics for the social sciences and
because of course promoting the uses of mathematics applied to social sciences was
one of his many goals. Intellectually and scientifically though, I think he had only a
moderate interest for game theory, probably because he saw more or less clearly
that the utilitarian axiomatics of game theory, its a priori simple psychology was
little compatible with his own views on the 'empirical analysis of action."' Cf.
Raymond Boudon, e-mail to the author, March 26, 2000. Information supplied by
Hans Zetterberg further supports the view of Boudon, and confirms that "game
theory within Columbia sociology was part of the efforts to create a mathematical
sociology by Paul Lazarsfeld." Howard Raiffa, Zetterberg also says, was a member
of many dissertation committees in sociology at Columbia University. Cf. Hans
Zetterberg, e-mail to the author, March 26, 2000.
Robert K. Merton, e-mail to the author, April 2, 2000.
Angela O'Rand, "Mathematizing Social Science in the 1950s," 194-195 in Roy
Weintraub, editor, Toward a History of Game Theory (Durham: Duke University
Press, 1992).
Coleman in Swedberg, Economics and Sociology, 49.
The full statement by Neil Smelser reads as follows: "As far as I can remember
(mainly from seminars, conversations, etc.) with Talcott, he was certainly aware of

328
16.
17.
18.
19.
20.
the work of von Neumann and Morgenstern, and mentioned it from time to time,
but never as being of special theoretical interest to his work. Talcott and I never
really thought of game theory in working out the theoretical framework for Economy
and Society"- Neil Smelser, e-mail to the author, March 13, 2000.
Bernard, "The Theory of Games," American Journal of Sociology 59 (1954): 412.
Ibid., 411.
Ibid., 414.
Ibid., 416.
In commenting on Bernard's article and her statement that more and better mathematics is needed, Thomas Schelling states the following in The Strategy of Conflict:
"My own view is that the present deficiencies are not in the mathematics, and that
the theory of strategy has suffered from too great a willingness of social scientists to
treat the subject as though it were, or should be, a branch of mathematics" Thomas Schelling, The Strategy of Conflict (Cambridge: Harvard University Press,
[1960] 1980), 10).

21. Bernard's first study of a particular topic, which draws on game theory, appeared in
the mid-1960s in Handbook of Marriage and the Family. Here she bases her analysis
nearly exclusively on Schelling's ideas and suggests, for example, that couples often
come to agree on what type of sex they will engage in through tacit coordination. A
spouse who refuses to listen to the other spouse is similarly analyzed with the help
of Schelling's ideas on commitment: if you close your ears and do not listen to what
the other person says, she will be forced to take this into account when deciding on
her next move. Bernard's last attempt to use game theory in her sociological work
is to be found in The Sex Game (1968), which is a study of communication between
the sexes. A very small part of this study, however, draws directly on game theory,
and it is clear that Bernard by now was experiencing difficulties in using game
theory on the kind of topics she was interested in. Still, one can find some very
interesting remarks in The Sex Game, for example about the role of emotions in
games and about the different ways in which males and females play games; see,
Bernard, The Sex Game (New York: Atheneum Paperbacks, [1968] 1975), 301-302.
22. Jessie Bernard, "Social Problems as Problems of Decision," Social Problems 6
(1959): 221.
23. Jessie Bernard, "Some Current Conceptualizations in the Field of Conflict,"American
Journal of Sociology 30 (1964): 444.
24. Ibid.
25. Jessie Bernard, "AWoman's Twentieth Century," 345, in Bennett M. Berger, editor,
Authors of Their Own Lives (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990), 345.
26. Theodore Caplow, "A Theory of Coalitions in the Triad," American Sociological
Review 21 (1956): 489.
27. In a later work Caplow again refers to game theory, especially to the prisoner's
dilemma. See Theodore Caplow, Peace Games (Middletown: Wesleyan University
Press, 1989).
28. William Gamson, e-mail to the author, March 21, 2000.
29. William Gamson, "ATheory of Coalition Formation," American Sociological Review
26 (1961): 373-382.
30. Ibid., 382.
31. William Riker, "Coalitions. I. The Study of Coalitions," 527 in Vol. 2 of David L.
Sills, editor, International Encyclopaedia of the Social Sciences (New York: The
Macmillan Company, 1968). Some years later Gamson published a simulated
society game, which can be described as an extended prisoner's dilemma game.

329
32.
33.
34.
35.
36.
37.
38.
39.
40.
See William Gamson, SIMSOC: Simulated Society (New York: The Free Press,
third edition, 1968).
Gerald Marwell and David Schmitt, "Are 'Trivial' Games the Most Interesting
Psychologically?" Behavioral Science 13 (1968): 125-128; Phillip Bonacich, e-mail
to the author, May 9, 2000.
E.g., Phillip Bonacich, "Norms and Cohesion as Adaptive Responses to Potential
Conflict: An Experimental Study," Sociometry 35/3 (1972: 357-375, and "Secrecy
and Solidarity," Sociometry 39/3 (1976: 200-208).
Phillip Bonacich, e-mail to the author, May 9, 2000.
See Thomas Scheff, "A Theory of Social Coordination Applicable to Mixed-Motive
Games," Sociometry 30 (1967): 215-234, and "Toward a Sociological Model of
Consensus," American Journal of Sociology 32 (1967): 32-46.
Bernard, "Some Current Conceptualizations in the Field of Conflict," American
Journal of Sociology 30 (1964): 453.
Clifford Geertz, "Blurred Genres: The Refiguration of Social Thought," 20, in
Local Knowledge (New York: Basic Books, 1983).
It would be difficult, within the framework of this article, to trace properly the
impact of Huizinga and Wittgenstein on the discussion of games in social science
discourse during the period in question; and, as part of this, to try to sort out the
exact impact of game theory on this discussion. As a rule of thumb, however, it can
be said that when reference is made to "payoffs," "strategy,"and "matrix," there is
an influence of game theory and not of Huizinga or Wittgenstein. For Wittgenstein's
influential discussion of language games, and for Huizinga's analysis of the role of
play in civilization, see Johan Huizinga, Homo Ludens: A Study of the Play-element
in Culture (London: Routledge, [1938] 1949); and Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical
Investigations (New York: Macmillan, [1953] 1968).
By "low-tech game theory" is meant what is sometimes referred to in the gametheoretical literature as "non-mathematical game theory," that is, a study of interdependent decisions in which the use of mathematics is minimal but that includes a
matrix or a decision tree as well as stringent game-theoretical arguments. "High-tech
game theory," on the other hand, includes a technical analysis and typically consists
of an application of some well-established way of doing game theory.
Anderson and Moore, "Autelic Folk-Models"; Jessie Bernard, "The Adjustments of
Married Mates," 675-739 in Harold T. Christensen, editor, Handbook of Marriage
and the Family (Chicago: Rand McNally & Company, 1964), and The Sex Game;
Bonacich, "Norms and Cohesion," and "Secrecy and Solidarity"; Scott Boorman,
The Protracted Game: A Wei-Ch'i Interpretation of Maoist Revolutionary Strategy
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1969); Raymond Boudon, "Generating Models
as a Research Strategy," 51-64 in Robert K. Merton et al., editors, Qualitative and
Quantitative Social Research (New York: The Free Press, 1979); Michael Burawoy,
"The Labor Process as a Game," 77-94 in Manufacturing Consent: Changes in the
Labor Process under Monopoly Capitalism (Chicago: University of Chicago Press,
1979); James Coleman, "The Possibility of a Social Welfare Function: Reply,"
American Economic Review 57 (1967): 1311-1317, "Games as Vehicles for Social
Theory," American Behavioral Scientist 12 (1969): 2-6, and The Foundations of
Social Theory (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1990); Michel Crozier,
"Comparing Structures and Comparing Games," 193-207 in Geert Hofstade
and M. Sami Kassem, editors, European Contributions to Organization Theory
(Amsterdam: Van Gorcum, 1976), and Michel Crozier and Jean-Claude Thoenig,
"La Regulation des Systemes Organis6s Complexes," Revue Francaise de Sociologie

330
41.
42.
43.
44.
45.
46.
16 (1975), pp. 3-32; Norbert Elias, "Game Models," 71-103 in What Is Sociology?
(New York: Columbia University Press, [1979] 1978); Gamson, "A Theory of
Coalition Formation"; Goffman, "Fun in Games"; Douglas Heckathorn, "Collective Sanctions and the Creation of Prisoner's Dilemma Norms," American Journal
of Sociology 94 (1988), 535-562, and "Collective Action and the Second-Order
Free-Rider Problem," Rationality and Society 1 (1989): 78-100; Eric Leifer, "Trials
of Involvement: Evidence for Local Games," Sociological Forum 3 (1988): 499-524,
and Actors as Observers: A Theory of Skill in Social Relationships (New York:
Garland, 1991); Michael Macy and John Skvoretz, "The Evolution of Trust and
Cooperation between Strangers: A Computational Model," American Sociological
Review 63 (1988): 638-660; James Montgomery "Toward a Role-Theoretic Conception of Embeddedness," American Journal of Sociology 104 (1988): 92-125;
Werner Raub, "Problematic Social Situations and the 'Large-Number Dilemma':
A Game-Theoretical Analysis," Journal of Mathematical Sociology 13 (1988): 311357, and Werner Raub and Jerome Weesie, "Reputation and Efficiency in Social
Interactions: An Example of Networks Effects," American Journal of Sociology 96
(1990): 626-654; Chris Snijders and Werner Raub, "Revolution and Risk: Paradoxical Consequences of Society 10 (1998): 405-425; and W Edgar Vinacke and Abe
Arkoff, "An Experimental Study of Coalitions in the Triad,"American Sociological
Review 22 (1957): 406-414.
See, e.g., Coleman, "The Possibility of a Social Welfare Function," 1311-1317, and
"Games as Vehicles for Social Theory"; Elias, "Game Models"; Donald Roy,
"'Banana Time'; Job Satisfaction and Informal Organization," Human Organization 18 (1960): 158-168; William Foot Whyte, Money and Motivation (New York:
Harper & Brothers, 1966), 31-38; and Burawoy, "The Labor Process as a Game."
Michel Crozier, The Bureaucratic Phenomenon (Chicago: University of Chicago
Press, [1963] 1964), 145-174.
Crozier, "Comparing Structures and Comparing Games," 196.
Ibid. The difficulty in formalizing the analysis comes out very clearly in the one
empirical study in which Crozier and a colleague tried to apply the new paradigm.
See Crozier and Thoenig, "La R6gulation des Systemes Organisees Complexes"; see
also Michel Crozier and Erhard Friedberg, "The Game as an Organized Instrument
of Organized Action," 45-63, in Actors and Systems. The Politics of Collective
Action (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, [1977] 1980).
Geertz, "Blurred Genres," 24.
A special mention should also be made of "Expression Games," which deals with
the capacity of people to reveal and conceal information; cf. Erving Goffman,
"Expression Games," 1-103 in Strategic Interaction (New York: Ballantine Books,
[1961] 1972). At one point in this essay, Goffman, for example, says that "The gametheory assumption that one's opponent is exactly as smart as oneself is not a wise
one in daily affairs" - ibid., 92. Goffman's important concept of "the team" in The
Presentation of Self in Everyday Life originates, according to the author, in the
work of von Neumann and Morgenstern; cf. Goffman, The Presentation of Self in
Everyday Life (New York: Doubleday & Company, [1956] 1959), 80. For a discussion of Goffman and game theory, see, e.g., Randall Collins, "Neorationalism and
Game Theory [in the Work of Goffman]," 238-246 in Theoretical Sociology (New
York: Academic Press, 1981); and for a critique of the idea that ethnomethodology,
like Goffman's approach, can be understood in terms of games, see Douglas
Maynard, "Goffman, Garfinkel, and Games," Sociological Theory 9 (1991): 277-279,
and Harold Garfinkel, "Passing and the Managed Achievement of Sex Status in an

331
47.
48.
49.
50.
51.
52.
53.
54.
'Intersexed' Person, Part 1," 140 ff. in Studies in Ethnomethodology (London: Polity
Press, 1967). It can finally be noted that Goffman, on an invitation from Thomas
Schelling, spent the years 1966-1968 at the Center for International Affairs at
Harvard; cf. Diane Vaughan, "How Theory Travels: Analogy, Models, and the
Case of A. Michael Spence," paper presented at ASA in San Francisco in 1998;
and Thomas Schelling, e-mail to the author, June 15, 2000.
Goffman, "Fun in Games," 32 in Encounters.
Goffman, "Expression Games," 143 in Strategic Interaction, emphasis added.
Goffman, "Strategic Interaction," 149-150 in Strategic Interaction.
Boorman, The Protracted Game, 5.
Boorman, The Protracted Game, 164-165.
Daniel Bell in Swedberg, Economics and Sociology, 224; cf. Douglas Heckathorn,
"Game Theory and Sociology in the 1980s," Contemporary Sociology, 15 (1986),
206). Again, as one of the reviewers pointed out, it would have been useful to have a
Social Science Citation analysis at this point to be able to trace better the ups and
downs of the popularity of game theory among sociologists.
Jon Elster suggested that game theory can be used as a micro foundation for
sociology in general and for Marxism in particular, something that Anthony
Giddens, Claus Offe, and Johannes Berger responded to. One of the key points of
the respondents was that game theory is problematical in that it enters so late in the
sociological analysis, that is, after the various strategies and payoffs have been
delineated. Cf. Jon Elster (with replies by Anthony Giddens, Claus Offe, and
Johannes Berger), "Marxism, Functionalism and Game Theory: The Case for
Methodological Individualism," Theory and Society 11 (1982): 453-482, 521-526,
527-539. Raymond Boudon wrote on game theory mainly in the 1970s and argued,
somewhat similarly to Goffman and Schelling, that there exist certain areas in
social reality where game theory may be applicable: "it has seemed to me that it
[game theory] can be used with benefit in situations where its axiomatics may be
held as realistic." Cf. Raymond Boudon, e-mail to the author, March 26, 2000.
James Coleman, finally, was enormously interested in games - but not in game
theory. Games, he argued, constitute an excellent tool for the sociologist, who can
use these for a better understanding as well as an elaboration of social theory.
Coleman constructed several sociological games of his own, the best-known of
which is the so-called legislative game, in which a number of legislators trade votes.
According to information from one of Coleman's students, Gudmund Hernes,
Coleman's theory of collective decisions grew out of his legislative game. "Coleman
loved games," Hernes says, and he conducted at one point a seminar in which
the participants all constructed games of their own. (Author's conversation with
Gudmund Hernes on October 1, 2000.) For Coleman's fascination with the use of
games as an educational tool in the schools, see Sarene Spence Boocock, "Games
with Simulated Environments: Educational Innovation and Applied Sociological
Research," 132-146 in Jon Clark, editor, James S. Coleman (London: Falmer Press,
1996).
It is significant that a non-sociologist was chosen by American Journal of Sociology
and American Sociological Review to review the works of von Neumann-Morgenstern (1944) and Luce-Raiffa (1957). See Herbert Simon, "Review of von Neumann
and Morgenstern, Theory of Games and Economic Behavior,"American Sociological
Review 23 (1958): 342-343. According to Simon, when he wrote the review of von
Neumann-Morgenstern he tailored his argument to the fact that "my audience,
sociologists, would be ... mostly quite unable to follow any of the mathematical

332
arguments." Cf. Herbert Simon, e-mail to Mie Augier, February 2, 1999, as cited in
Augier and Swedberg, "Game Theory and Sociology."
55. Bernard, "The Adjustments of Married Mates'; Coleman, "Games as Vehicles for
Social Theory"; Crozier, "Comparing Structures and Comparing Games"; Gamson,
"A Theory of Coalition Formation"; Goffman, "Fun in Games"; Michael Hechter,
"Comment [on Michael Taylor,'Cooperation and Rationality': On the Inadequacy
of GameTheoryfor the Solutionof Real-WorldCollectiveAction Problems,"240249 in Karen Cook and Margaret Levi, editors, The Limits of Rationality (Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1990); Heckathorn, "Collective Sanctions," and
"Collective Action and the Second-Order Free-Rider Problem"; Raub, "Problematic Social Situations and the 'Large-Number Dilemma"'; Raub and Weesie,
"Reputationand Efficiencyin Social Interactions";Scheff,"Towarda Sociological

Model of Consensus";ArthurStinchcombe,"GameTheory,Procedure,and Consent:Focusingon FairDivision,"Law & SocietyInquiry22 (1967):1087-1105;and
Harrison C. White, Identity and Control: A Structural Theory of Social Action.
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992).
56. See, e.g., Toshio Yamagishi, Social Dilemmas," 311-335 in Karen Cook et al.,
editors, Sociological Perspectives on Social Psychology (Boston: Allyn and Bacon,
1995); and Peter Kollock, "Social Dilemmas: The Anatomy of Cooperation,"
Annual Review of Sociology 24 (1998): 183-214.
57. See,e.g., EllenBienenstockandPhillipBonacich,"NetworkExchangeas a Cooperative Game," Rationality and Society 9 (1997): 37-66, and Barry Markovsky,"Network
Games," Rationality and Society 9 (1997): 67-90.
58. GeraldMarwelland RuthAmes,"Experimentson the Provisionof PublicGoods,

I-II," American Journal of Sociology 48 (1979): 1335-1360, 1335-1360, 85 (1980):
926-937;"EconomistsFreeRide, Does AnyoneElse?"Journalof PublicEconomics

15 (1981): 295-310.
59. Douglas Heckathorn,conversationwith the author,April 28, 2000; and Michael

Macy,conversationwith the author,May 1, 2000.
60. A social dilemma may be formally defined as a group structure"...involving
individuallydominating strategiesthat converge on a deficient equilibrium.A
strategyis dominatingif its personal payoffs are superior to those of all other
strategiesno matterwhat othersdo; an outcomeis 'deficient'whenthat outcomeis
less preferredby all choosersto some otheroutcomes;suchan outcomein a social
dilemmawill, however,be in equilibriumbecause no individualchooser has an
61.
62.
63.
64.
65.
66.
67.
egoistic incentive to depart from selecting a dominating strategy." See Robyn

Dawes as cited in Yamaghisi, "Social Dilemmas," 311.
Garret Hardin, "The Tragedy of the Commons," Science 162 (1968): 1243-1297.
E.g., Sylvia Nasar, A Beautiful Mind (New York: Touchstone, 1999), 118.
E.g., David Sally, "Conversation and Co-operation in Social Dilemmas: A MetaAnalysis of Experiments from 1958-1992," Rationality and Society 7 (1995): 58-92.
E.g., Peter Kollock, "Transforming Social Dilemmas: Group Identity and Cooperation," 186-210 in P. Danielson, editor, Modelling Rational and Moral Agents
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998).
E.g., Raub, "Problematic Social Situations and the 'Large-Number Dilemma."'
E.g., Heckathorn, "Collective Sanctions," and "Collective Action and the SecondOrder Free-Rider Problem."
Dean Pruitt and Melvin Kimbell, "TwentyYears of Experimental Gaming: Critique,
Synthesis, and Suggestions for the Future,"Annual Review of Psychology 28 (1977),
363-392.

333
68. E.g., Peter Kollock, "'An Eye for an Eye' Leaves Everybody Blind: Cooperation
and Accounting Systems," American Sociological Review 58 (1993), 768-786; and
Jeroen Weesie and Raub, "Private Ordering."
69. E.g., Michael Macy, "Walking Out of Social Traps: A Stochastic Learning Model
for Prisoner's Dilemma," Rationality and Society 1 (1989): 197-212.
70. Heckathorn, "Collective Sanctions"; Weesie and Raub, "Private Ordering"; and
Michael Macy and John Skvoretz, "The Evolution of Trust and Cooperation between
Stangers: A Computational Model," American Sociological Review 63 (1998): 738760.
71. The fact that Pierre Bourdieu, for example, draws on the metaphor of the game in
his sociology has hardly been noticed. See, for example, the following summary
statement, from p. 98 in Pierre Bourdieu and Louic Wacquant, An Invitation to
Reflexive Sociology (Chicago: University Chicago Press, 1992), on the role of the
concept of game in Bourdieu's work: "We can indeed, with caution, compare a field
to a game (jeu) although, unlike the latter, a field is not the product of a deliberate
act of creation, and it follows rules or, better, regularities, that are not explicit and
codified. Thus we have stakes (enjeux) which are for the most part the product of the
competition between players. We have an investment in the game, illusio (from ludus,
the game): players are taken in by the game, they oppose one another, sometimes
with ferocity, only to the extent that they concur in their belief (doxa) in the game and
its stakes; they grant these are cognitions that escape questioning. Players agree, by
the mere fact of playing, and not by way of a "contract," that the game is worth
playing, that it is "worth the candle," and this collusion is the very basis of their
competition. We also have trump cards, that is, master cards whose force varies
depending on the game: just as the relative value of cards changes with each game,
the hierarchy of the different species of capital (economic, social, cultural, symbolic)
varies across the various fields. In other words, there are cards that are valid,
efficacious in all fields - these are the fundamental species of capital - but their
relative value as trump cards is determined by each field and even by the successive
states of the same field." For a critique of Jean Tirole's game-theoretical version of
industrial economics, as compared to the earlier, more empirically oriented research
set off by Edward Mason, see Pierre Bourdieu, "Le Champ Economique," Actes de
la Recherche en Sciences Sociales 119 (September 1997): 55-56.
72. Stinchcombe, "Is the Prisoner's Dilemma All of Sociology?"
73. Stinchcombe also discusses game theory in a more recent article. His main point
here, insofar as game theory and sociology is concerned, is quite similar to what
Goffman tried to express through his concept of rules of irrelevance, namely that in
ordinary games "like [in] formal models for bargaining" a certain reality is "carefully set off from everyday life and everyday discourse." See Stinchcombe, "Game
Theory, Procedure, and Consent," 1090. George Homas has made a somewhat
similar point in a review of Axelrod's The Evolution of Cooperation. Homans was
very favorable to Axelrod's argument about tit-for-tat as a solution to cooperation
among egoists, but he also made clear that cooperation could evolve in many other
situations than the ones discussed in The Evolution of Cooperation: "Cooperation
does not evolve only from the reiterated Prisoner's Dilemma. Indeed, it is much
more apt to evolve in simpler situations, especially in the exchange of goods and
services among individuals and groups. And we know from accounts of barter in
primitive societies, such collaboration, too, can evolve perfectly tacitly and without
friendship between the parties" - George Homans, "Review of Robert Axelrod,
The Evolution of Cooperation," Theory and Society 14 (1985: 896-897).

334
74. Hechter "Comment"; cf. Hechter, Principles of Group Solidarity (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987), 73-77; and for a rebuttal, Werner Raub, Thomas
Voss, and Jeroen Weesie, "On the Usefulness of Game Theory for the Resolution of
Real-World Collective Action Problems," Rationality and Society 4 (1992): 95-102.
75. See Hechter, "Comment," 248.
76. Ibid., 245.
77. James Montgomery, "Toward a Role-Theoretic Conception of Embeddedness,"
American Journal of Sociology 104 (1998): 92-125.
78. E.g., Roby Dawes and Richard Thaler, "Anomalies: Cooperation," Journal of
Economic Perspectives 2 (1988): 187-197.
79. In an e-mail to the author, dated April 21, 2000, Montgomery specifies: "The
critique of rational choice in my 1998 AJS paper was a narrowly-focused attack on
the standard assumption that the individual is a unitary actor."
80. White, Identity and Control, 201-202.
81. Leifer, "Trials of Involvement"; cf. Leifer, Actors as Observers.
82. Leifer, "Trials of Involvement," 499.
83. Phillip Bonacich, e-mail to the author, May 9, 2000.
84. Thomas Schelling, "What is Game Theory?," 221 in Choice and Consequence
(Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1984).
85. Peter Blau, Exchange and Power in Social Life (New York: John Wiley & Sons,
1964), 46.
86. E.g., Michael Macy, "From Factors to Actors: The Third Wave in Social Simulations,"
International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences (forthcoming).
87. See Werner Raub and Gideon Keren, "Hostages as a Commitment Device: A
Game-Theoretic Model and an Empirical Test of Some Scenarios," Journal of
Economic Behavior and Organization 21 (1993): 47.
88. Trond Petersen, "On the Promise of Game Theory in Sociology," Contemporary
Sociology 23 (1994): 501. In an answer to the question if he had changed his
opinion, as expressed in the article from 1994, Trond Petersen answered (in an e-mail
to the author, dated April 16, 2000): "My views are the same as before. I may have
become even more insistent on the need for broad scale empirical work than before.
Much GT [game theory] is for small-scale social situations, unless say the work of
A. Przeworski on social democracy."
89. Raymond Boudon, "Comment on Hauser's Review of Education, Opportunity, and
Social Inequality,"American Journal of Sociology 81 (1976): 1178-1179.
90. See, e.g., Boudon, "Generating Models as a Research Strategy," and The Logic of
Social Action (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, [1977] 1981), 108ff.; Goffman,
"Strategic Interaction"; Schelling, The Strategy of Conflict; Colin Camerer, "Progress
in Behavioral Game Theory," Journal of Economic Perspectives 11/4 (Fall 1997):
167-188; Paul Milgram, Douglass North, and Barry Weingast, "The Role of Institutions in the Revival of Trade: The Law Merchant," Economics and Politics 2 (1990):
1-23; Avner Greiff, "Contract Enforceability and Economic Institutions in Early
Trade: The Mahgrebi Trader's Coalition," American Economic Review 83 (1993):
525-546.
91. See, e.g., Augier and Swedberg, "Game Theory and Sociology."
92. For counterfactuals, see especially Max Weber, "Logic of Historical Explanation,"
111-131 in Weber, editor, W.G. Runciman, Weber - Selections in Translation
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, [1905] 1978), and Economy and Society
(Berkeley: University of California Press, [1992] 1987), 11; Jon Elster, "Counterfactuals and the New Economic History," 175-221 in Logic and Society (New York:

335
John Wiley & Sons, 1978); and Neil Ferguson, Virtual History. Alternatives and
Counterfactuals (London: Papermac, 1997).
93. Weber, "Logic of Historical Explanation," 112.
94. For "puppet show," see, e.g., Alfred Schutz, Collected Papers, I. The Problem of
Social Reality (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1971), 42. For Schutz's argument that
economic theory neglects the subjective reality of the actors and that the complexity
of the rationality assumption dramatically increases when two actors take each other
into account, see ibid., 31-35. For a rare reference to game theory in Schutz's work,
see Richard Grathoff, Philosophers in Exile. The Correspondenceof Alfred Schutz and
Aron Gurwitsch,1939-1959 (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1989), 176.


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Sociology and Game Theory: Contemporary and Historical Perspectives

Author(s): Richard Swedberg

This content downloaded from 141.213.236.110 on Fri, 13 Dec 2013 18:24:16 PM

Sociology and game theory: Contemporary and

Since the mid-1980s game theory has become increasingly popular

This content downloaded from 141.213.236.110 on Fri, 13 Dec 2013 18:24:16 PM

Oskar Morgenstern,and which has been furtherdeveloped by such

Most commentatorsagreethat game theoryhas had some verydistinct

This content downloaded from 141.213.236.110 on Fri, 13 Dec 2013 18:24:16 PM

In this review of Games and Decisions for the American Sociological

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The pioneer: Jessie Bernard

This content downloaded from 141.213.236.110 on Fri, 13 Dec 2013 18:24:16 PM

This content downloaded from 141.213.236.110 on Fri, 13 Dec 2013 18:24:16 PM

There was little discussion among sociologists of Bernard's article,

Otherpioneers (Phillip Bonacich, Theodore Caplow, William Gamson,

This content downloaded from 141.213.236.110 on Fri, 13 Dec 2013 18:24:16 PM

This content downloaded from 141.213.236.110 on Fri, 13 Dec 2013 18:24:16 PM

Leaving the impact of Wittgenstein and Huizinga to the side,38 it is

This content downloaded from 141.213.236.110 on Fri, 13 Dec 2013 18:24:16 PM

Standard game theory

Raub (1988), Raub

Basic logic and the

Bernard (1964, 1968),

Special games are used

Vinacke and Arkoff

Games that can be

Anderson and Moore

Game theory proper is covered by categories 1 and 2; and game-related sociology

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Example #1: Michel Crozier on organizations

This content downloaded from 141.213.236.110 on Fri, 13 Dec 2013 18:24:16 PM

Example #2: Erving Goffman on games and strategic interaction

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limitationsfor the studyof face-to-faceinteractions."47

strategicinteraction,however,"too much is left out" in game theory.48

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Another fascinating quality of Boorman's study is that he has chosen

The current revival of game theory in sociology (mid-1980s and

This content downloaded from 141.213.236.110 on Fri, 13 Dec 2013 18:24:16 PM

The currentgeneration of high-tech game theorists in sociology

This content downloaded from 141.213.236.110 on Fri, 13 Dec 2013 18:24:16 PM

New game-theoretical sociology

Low-tech (concepts of game

High-tech (mainstream game

Mid-1980s and onwards

Topics mainly inspired by von

Topics that have grown out of

Jessie Bernard, Philip Bonacich,

Douglas Heckathorn, Michael

Bernard (1964), Gamson (1961),

Raub (1988), Raub and Weesie

Very marginal, practically

Seen as a technique, used e.g.

Scattered but lively discussion of

Occasional discussion (e.g.

Introduction into sociology of

High technical skill; further

Low technical capacity; little