A Tournament of Party Decision Rules

James H. Fowler and Michael Laver
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James H. Fowler: Department of Political Science University of California, San Diego
Michael Laver: Department of Politics New York University

Journal of Conflict Resolution, 2008, vol. 52, issue 1, 68-92

Abstract: Following Axelrod's tournaments for strategies in the repeat-play prisoner's dilemma, we ran a ``tournament of party decision rules'' in a dynamic agent-based model of party competition. We asked researchers to submit rules for selecting party positions in a two-dimensional policy space, pitting each rule against all others in a suite of long-running simulations. The most successful rule combined a number of striking features: satisficing rather than maximizing in the short run, being ``parasitic'' on choices made by successful rules, and being hardwired not to attack other agents using the same rule. In a second suite of simulations in a more evolutionary setting in which the selection probability of a rule was a function of the previous success of agents using the same rule, the rule winning the original tournament pulled even further ahead of the competition.

Keywords: agent-based model; computer tournament; party competition; parties and elections (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2008
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:jocore:v:52:y:2008:i:1:p:68-92

DOI: 10.1177/0022002707308598

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