Michael Laver

Parliamentary democracy involves a never-ending cycle of elections, government formations, and the need for governments to survive in potentially hostile environments. These conditions require members of any government to make decisions on a large number of issues, some of which sharply divide them. Officials resolve these divisions by 'logrolling'– conceding on issues they care less about, in exchange for reciprocal concessions on issues to which they attach more importance. Though realistically modeling this 'governance cycle' is beyond the scope of traditional formal analysis, this book attacks the problem computationally in two ways. Firstly, it models the behavior of “functionally rational” senior politicians who use informal decision heuristics to navigate their complex high stakes setting. Secondly, by applying computational methods to traditional game theory, it uses artificial intelligence to model how hyper-rational politicians might find strategies that are close to optimal.

Parliamentary democracy involves a never-ending cycle of elections, government formations, and the need for governments to survive in potentially hostile environments. These conditions require members of any government to make decisions on a large number of issues, some of which sharply divide them. Officials resolve these divisions by 'logrolling'– conceding on issues they care less about, in exchange for reciprocal concessions on issues to which they attach more importance. Though realistically modeling this 'governance cycle' is beyond the scope of traditional formal analysis, this book attacks the problem computationally in two ways. Firstly, it models the behavior of “functionally rational” senior politicians who use informal decision heuristics to navigate their complex high stakes setting. Secondly, by applying computational methods to traditional game theory, it uses artificial intelligence to model how hyper-rational politicians might find strategies that are close to optimal.

Michael Laver examines how the giving of exotic gifts in early modern Japan facilitated Dutch trade by ascribing legitimacy to the shogunal government and by playing into the shogun’s desire to create a worldview centered on a Japanese tributary state. The book reveals how formal and informal gift exchange also created a smooth working relationship between the Dutch and the Japanese bureaucracy, allowing the politically charged issue of foreign trade to proceed relatively uninterrupted for over two centuries.Based mainly on Dutch diaries and official Dutch East India Company records, as well as exhaustive secondary research conducted in Dutch, English, and Japanese, this new study fills an important gap in our knowledge of European-Japanese relations. It will also be of great interest to anyone studying the history of material culture and cross-cultural relations in a global context.

Building on the Cambridge Element Agent Based Models of Social Life: Fundamentals (Cambridge, 2020), we move on to the next level. We do this by building agent based models of polarization and ethnocentrism. In the process, we develop: stochastic models, which add a crucial element of uncertainty to human interaction; models of human interactions structured by social networks; and 'evolutionary' models in which agents using more effective decision rules are more likely to survive and prosper than others. The aim is to leave readers with an effective toolkit for building, running and analyzing agent based modes of social interaction.

Social interactions are rich, complex, and dynamic. One way to understand these is to model interactions that fascinate us. Some of the more realistic and powerful models are computer simulations. Simple, elegant and powerful, tools are available in user-friendly free software to help you design, build and run your own models of social interactions that intrigue you, and do this on the most basic laptop computer. Focusing on a well-known model of housing segregation, this Element is about how to unleash that power, setting out the fundamentals of what is now known as 'agent based modeling'.

Michael Laver examines how the giving of exotic gifts in early modern Japan facilitated Dutch trade by ascribing legitimacy to the shogunal government and by playing into the shogun’s desire to create a worldview centered on a Japanese tributary state. The book reveals how formal and informal gift exchange also created a smooth working relationship between the Dutch and the Japanese bureaucracy, allowing the politically charged issue of foreign trade to proceed relatively uninterrupted for over two centuries.Based mainly on Dutch diaries and official Dutch East India Company records, as well as exhaustive secondary research conducted in Dutch, English, and Japanese, this new study fills an important gap in our knowledge of European-Japanese relations. It will also be of great interest to anyone studying the history of material culture and cross-cultural relations in a global context.

Party competition for votes in free and fair elections involves complex interactions by multiple actors in political landscapes that are continuously evolving, yet classical theoretical approaches to the subject leave many important questions unanswered. Here Michael Laver and Ernest Sergenti offer the first comprehensive treatment of party competition using the computational techniques of agent-based modeling. This exciting new technology enables researchers to model competition between several different political parties for the support of voters with widely varying preferences on many different issues. Laver and Sergenti model party competition as a true dynamic process in which political parties rise and fall, a process where different politicians attack the same political problem in very different ways, and where today's political actors, lacking perfect information about the potential consequences of their choices, must constantly adapt their behavior to yesterday's political outcomes. Party Competition shows how agent-based modeling can be used to accurately reflect how political systems really work. It demonstrates that politicians who are satisfied with relatively modest vote shares often do better at winning votes than rivals who search ceaselessly for higher shares of the vote. It reveals that politicians who pay close attention to their personal preferences when setting party policy often have more success than opponents who focus solely on the preferences of voters, that some politicians have idiosyncratic "valence" advantages that enhance their electability--and much more.

With a total population of some 500 million, the unified countries of modern Europe constitute the world’s largest collection of successful capitalist democracies. Yet within it, there are distinct clusters of states, each with its own characteristics, historical allegiances and political processes.Combining superb scholarship and rigorous empirical data with an accessible and engaging writing style, Representative Government in Modern Europe remains the leading textbook on comparativeEuropean politics. The fifth edition reflects key events and changes including the impact of the world financial and economic crisis; the EU’s adoption of the Lisbon Treaty; and the election of a centre-right governments in Germany and the UK.Retaining its comprehensive thematic approach to Europe as an integrated whole, while reflecting the continued importance of the EU, the new edition explores the key themes emerging in European politics: the importance of political leadership, the rise of the populist and extreme right, the personalisation of politics, ethnicity, citizen participation.

A new and wide-ranging empirical overview of party policy in 47 modern democracies, including all of the new democracies of Eastern Europe.It updates and radically extends Policy and Party Competition (1992), which established itself as a key mainstream data source for all political scientists exploring the policy positions of political parties. This essential text is divided into three clear parts:Part I introduces the study, themes and methodology Part II deals in depth with the wide range of issues involved in estimating and analyzing the policy positions of key political actors. Part III is the key data section that identifies key policy dimensions across the 47 countries, detailing their party positions and median legislators, and is complemented by graphical representations of each party system. This book is an invaluable reference for all political scientists, particularly those interested in party policy and comparative politics.

A new and wide-ranging empirical overview of party policy in 47 modern democracies, including all of the new democracies of Eastern Europe.It updates and radically extends Policy and Party Competition (1992), which established itself as a key mainstream data source for all political scientists exploring the policy positions of political parties. This essential text is divided into three clear parts:Part I introduces the study, themes and methodology Part II deals in depth with the wide range of issues involved in estimating and analyzing the policy positions of key political actors. Part III is the key data section that identifies key policy dimensions across the 47 countries, detailing their party positions and median legislators, and is complemented by graphical representations of each party system. This book is an invaluable reference for all political scientists, particularly those interested in party policy and comparative politics.

The politics of coalition--the very heart of the political process in most European countries--can be analyzed either theoretically or empirically. Multiparty Government reconciles these approaches. It gives students of European politics access to the insights of contemporary theory while applying it to an analysis of real-world coalition politics.Michael Laver and Norman Schofield examine five basic themes: the identity and motivation of the actors in the coalition game; the eventual membership of the coalitions they form; their durability; the payoffs that are shared out by coalition members; and the impact of constitutional bargaining, behavioral, and historical constraints on the process of coalition bargaining. They illustrate their discussion of theory with a range of detailed case studies.Multiparty Government offers an accessible approach that bridges the gap between the "European politics" and "game theory" traditions of political science, and puts the systematic study of the politics of coalition on the broader political science map."Laver and Schofield's book is at the same time accessible, pithy, down-to-earth, insightful, and yes, even captivating. In its scope and quality, it has no rival in the literature of party coalitions . . . all students of political parties or legislative behavior should allow themselves the privilege of being educated and entertained by Laver and Schofield's fine book." --American Political Science ReviewMichael Laver is Professor of Political Science and Sociology, University College, Galway. His books include Playing Politics; Private Desires, Political Action: An Invitation to the Politics of Rational Choice; The Crime Game; and Social Choice and Public Policy. Norman Schofield is Professor and Director, Center in Political Economy, Washington University. He is the author of Statistics: Theory & Practice in the Social Sciences; Mathematical Methods in Economics; and Social Choice and Democracy.

Private Desires, Political Action is an accessible overview of one of the most important approaches to the study of politics in the modern world - rational choice theory. Michael Laver does not set out to review this entire field, but rather to discuss how we might use rational choice theory to analyze the political competition that affects almost every aspect of our lives. The broad-ranging scope of the book introduces the theory at many levels of analysis, including: the private desires of individuals; the social context of how people fulfil their desires; and the problems of collective action. The discussion of these problems extends into the arena of politics, where the activities of `political entrepreneurs' or politicians and the formation of political parties and coalitions are addressed.

Offers an overview of one of the important approaches to the study of politics in the modern world - rational choice theory. This title discusses how we might use rational choice theory to analyze the political competition that affects almost every aspect of our lives.