Social Evolution Forum: The Peacock's Tale Lessons from Evolution for Effective Signaling in International Politics
Author
Blumstein, Daniel T.
Atran, Scott
Field, Scott
Hochberg, Michael E.
Johnson, Dominic D.P.
Sagarin, Raphael
Sosis, Richard
Thayer, Bradley
Date
2012Metadata
Show full item recordAbstract
Knowing how to send and interpret signals is an essential part of both
diplomacy and war. Political scientists have recognized that costly signals—
gestures and actions that involve significant cost or risk—are central to politics
and diplomacy since modeling doyen James Fearon built his Ph. D. thesis
around the concept in the 1990s. Because these signaling systems are pervasive
in nature (many of these strategies arise independently and repeatedly to solve
common problems suggesting evolutionary pressure to select strategies
offering the most success at the least cost), their underlying strategic logic has
important implications to foreign policy challenges we face today. By
capitalizing on solutions derived by evolution over 3. 5 billion years of life on
Earth, we may identify ideas that otherwise might not have been explored in a
policy context potentially offering quick, novel, and effective options to
increase strategic and combat effectiveness. Here we present 8 lessons from
evolution for political science.
Rights
This publication is a work of the U.S. Government as defined in Title 17, United States Code, Section 101. Copyright protection is not available for this work in the United States.Collections
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