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Some Observations on Political Gaming

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 July 2011

Herbert Goldhamer  and
Hans Speier
Herbert Goldhamer
Affiliation:
Social Science Division of The RAND Corporation.
Hans Speier
Affiliation:
Social Science Division of The RAND Corporation.
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Extract

During the past five years the Social Science Division of The RAND Corporation has been developing a procedure for the study of foreign affairs that we call “political gaming.” This article gives a brief description of the technique and some of our observations about its utility.

Type
Research Note
Information
World Politics , Volume 12 , Issue 1 , October 1959 , pp. 71 - 83
Copyright
Copyright © Trustees of Princeton University 1959

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References

1 This work was made possible in part by funds provided by the Ford Foundation.

2 The Social Science Division of RAND has prepared a series of internal papers on gaming. Several of these have been made available to persons outside RAND who have expressed an interest in experimenting with the technique. Some of these papers are: Goldhamer, H., “Toward a Cold War Game” (1954)Google Scholar; Kecskemeti, P., “War Games and Political Games” (1955)Google Scholar; Goldhamer, H., “The Political Exercise: A Summary of the Social Science Division's Work in Political Gaming, with Special Reference to the Third Exercise” (1955)Google Scholar; Goldsen, J. M., “The Political Exercise: An Assessment of the Fourth Round” (1956)Google Scholar; Social Science Division, “Experimental Research on Political Gaming” (1958).Google Scholar The present article has incorporated some material from the papers listed above, particularly from the last-mentioned item.

3 Manstein, Erich von, Aus einem Soldatenleben, Bonn, 1958, pp. 131–33.Google Scholar

4 Goldhamer, H., “Toward a Cold War Game” (1954).Google Scholar

5 All players had spent some time in the country whose government they represented and were familiar not only with its political system but also with many members of its ruling groups.

6 In war games, these prescriptions are called “planning factors.”

7 Work in this area at Northwestern University is partially summarized in a paper by Harold Guetzkow, “A Use of Simulation in the Study of Inter-nation Relations” (mimeographed).

8 For one of these, cf. Padelford, Norman J. and Tillman, Seth P., “Report on Political Exercise on Berlin Crisis,” January 1959Google Scholar (mimeographed).

9 Since this article was written, such an attempt has been made on the undergraduate level in three institutions—Columbia University (Warner Schilling), MIT (Lucian Pye), and West Point (Major Abbott Greenleaf).