Non-hierarchical Collective Agency: A game-theoretical and computational study.

• Applicants: Professor Dr. Johannes Marx; Professor Dr. Olivier Roy
• Subject Area: Political Science
• Term: since 2020
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 443226175

The project analyzes mechanisms underlying the emergence and stability of non-hierarchical collective agency. In this context, it pursues two goals, namely (i) to investigate the role of shared beliefs and intentions for the emergence of groups with non-hierarchical collective agency and (ii) to study how these shared attitudes contribute to the emergence and stability of such agency. It does so through the study of the repeated and evolutionary dynamics of so-called 'team reasoning'. Team reasoning is an extension of classical non-cooperative game theory in which the players can reason either individually or as a team member, i.e. as members of a non-hierarchical collective actor. In the latter case, they adopt the preexisting team objectives and try to identify what they should do as team members while being uncertain of the team affiliation of the others. By means of computer simulations and game theoretic models, we will be able to identify conditions – for example in terms of payoff variation, framing, and mutual belief - that foster the emergence and stability of team reasoning and thus of non-hierarchical collective actors. As such, the project will provide a theoretical foundation for the concept of non-hierarchical collective agency. This foundation will be then brought to bear on empirical findings by calibrating the models’ parameters to the data obtained in the empirical projects of cooperating partners, thus helping both to test theoretical tenets and to cross-fertilize empirical research by providing new theoretical insights to the emergence and development of groups with non-hierarchical collective agency.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants