Strategic Transitions

A transition agreement is a rational game, with political actors choosing moves that will avoid widespread violence and civil war. As Josep M. Colomer argues, game theory is particularly appropriate to offer a theoretical framework for the study of democratic transitions, since it assumes that collective outcomes result from strategies chosen by self-interested actors. In particular, the cooperative, efficient equilibria of two "mugging" games and the famous "prisoner's dilemma" game point out that opportunities for mutual benefit exist within different models of transition. Strategic Transitions applies game theory to an analysis of Central Europe after the fall of Communism and, in particular, to the transitions in the former Soviet Union and in Poland. The strategic approach adopted by Colomer helps to explain the development of political reforms and democratization, even in the absence of the "structural preconditions" often postulated in other studies. With its application of game theory to democratic transitions, Strategic Transitions provides fresh insight into how political actors make the choices that move nations from authoritarian to more democratic regimes. "Colomer has succeeded in writing a supremely readable volume, which should attract the interest of everyone interested in democratic transitions."--Mads Qvortrup, Political Studies "At the theoretical level, Strategic Transitions shows deductively that transitions can be the outcome of a rational interaction between key actors under the authoritarian regime. The book provides a very convincing interpretation of the events leading to the collapse of the Soviet Union and democratization in Eastern Europe."--Leonard Wantchekon, Yale University "Josep M. Colomer has exemplary knowledge of the political dynamics of democratization in the contemporary world and an equally subtle sense of how best to specify those processes in game theoretic models. His Strategic Transitions reveals the impressive promise of empirically grounded game theory"--David D. Laitin, Stanford University