Home ⟩ Workshops ⟩ Mathematics for Governance Design
Mathematics for Governance Design
October 7-11, 2024
International Centre for Mathematical Sciences, Bayes Centre, Edinburgh, Scotland
Speaker(s):
Jules Hedges, University of Strathclyde; Saba Siddiki, Syracuse University; Joshua Tan, Oxford University; Philipp Zahn, 20squares; Seth Frey, University of California Davis
Abstract:
Every major global challenge facing humanity can be understood as a governance challenge. However, governance institution design has been held back by the difficulty of formally representing complex institutions. Game theory is one very powerful formalism that for nearly 80 years has permitted the formal analysis of institutions. However, established conceptions of the role of game theory in social science fall short of its potential, trading realistic description for simple, tractable toy models. Mathematical representations of complex institutions will enable us to move beyond the limits of tools such as game theory by introducing the composability, abstraction, and modularity of software engineering. With formal representations, scholars can begin to imagine a computationally aided design (CAD) of arbitrarily complex institutions. For example, within recent frameworks like "categorical game theory," a focus of this workshop, researchers from across the social sciences can compose systems of economic games into complex governance institutions. With such advances, computationally inclined economists, sociologists, political scientists, and natural resource scholars gain a common language for representing fundamental challenges in the design of social systems. This interdisciplinary workshop will accomplish the following objectives by bringing together mathematicians interested in serving social science and social scientists interested in the potential of formal models of institutions:
Expose computational social scientists to recent advances in the mathematical representation of social institutions
Expose mathematicians and computer scientists to methodology and pertinent challenges of social science, especially for areas such as natural resource management, climate governance, organizations, and democracy
Encourage collaborations between mathematicians and social scholars
Develop applications for compositional game theory in social science
Produce a roadmap for the development of compositional game theory tooling
To provide the best experiences, we use technologies like cookies to store and/or access device information. Consenting to these technologies will allow us to process data such as browsing behavior or unique IDs on this site. Not consenting or withdrawing consent, may adversely affect certain features and functions.
Functional
Always active
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes.The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.