Question

Know what the Prisoner’s Dilemma is and be able to explain how it relates to collective action problems in world politics. Also, you should be able to evaluate the Kantian peace argument.

Answer 1

A collective action problem is a scenario in which there is conflict between the individual interest and the group interest. In the scenario, each individual in the group faces a choice to either be selfish or cooperate. It is always in the individual’s best interest to act selfishly, regardless of what the other individuals do. However, if all individuals act selfishly, then they all get worse outcomes than if they all cooperate. In other words, it is in the individual’s interest to act selfishly, but it is in the group’s interest to have everyone cooperate. This is the conflict between the individual interest and the group interest.

THE PRISONER'S DILEMMA

The simplest collective action problem is known as the prisoner’s dilemma. In this scenario, there are two individuals suspected of committing a crime together. The police do not have sufficient evidence to convict them and the prosecutors speak to each suspect separately, trying to get each to confess and implicate the other in the crime in exchange for a reduced prison sentence. Here, confessing is acting selfishly, and remaining silent (not confessing) is cooperating. The collective action problem is for the two suspects to cooperate with each other to reduce their sentences. It is in the prisoners’ individual interest to confess, but it is in their group interest to stay silent.

KANTIAN PEACE ARGUMENT

Kantian peace theory is also known as Demographic peace theory.

In 1823, the United States announced one of its most important pieces of international policy: the Monroe Doctrine. In this policy, the US claimed that European aggression in the Americas would not be tolerated, because American democracies were fundamentally unique in the world.

Americans have long promoted the idea that there is something special about a democracy, and that democratic governments and nations behave distinctly differently than non-democratic ones. As it turns out, they may have been on to something. In modern political science, a frequently debated concept is that of the democratic peace theory, which basically states that democratic nations are unlikely to go to war against each other. Unlike other theories which argue why nations become aggressive, this one seeks to explain why they don't

.The first real articulation of the concept that democracies will not declare war on each other can be found in the writings of 18th-century German philosopher Immanuel Kant. Kant was a big supporter of the concept of representative government, and was watching as the American Revolution unfolded.

In 1795 he published an essay entitled ''Perpetual Peace'', in which he claimed that a nation with a constitutional republic government would be very cautious about going to war.Kant states that monarchs can declare war with little regard for personal safety because they won't be fighting, but a government of the people must take that decision more seriously. In Kant's opinion, therefore, a world full of constitutional republics would never know warfare. It would be a world of perpetual peace.