Democracy, Games, and Persuasion (English and Mathematics)
Course Description:
What is a fair election? What kinds of elections favor centrist, consensus building candidates, from a game theoretic point of view? What is the best way for a politician to persuade while still being truthful?
Democracy, Game Theory, and Persuasion explores these questions from both quantitative and qualitative perspectives. In this class, Dr. Bray uses game theory to discuss the meaning of democracy. The course examines the pros and cons of different approaches to voting, such as preferential ballot elections and Ranked Pairs Voting, and introduces game theory as an essential tool for predicting political behavior. At the same time, Dr. Giugni will introduce the class to the central literature and theories of political persuasion in the face of disagreement. We will focus on which rhetorical strategies have been embraced or viewed with suspicion by theorists, from Plato to Hobbes, as well as adopted in imaginative literature, from Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar to Walter Miller’s sci-fi classic A Canticle for Leibowitz. This course will ask you to think carefully about the practical and theoretical preconditions for life in a democracy.
The course also included a Data Expedition:
A Data Expedition is a two week exercise carried out in class in collaboration with a graduate student. It’s purpose is to introduce the undergraduate students to data analysis and visualization methods.