Session 9. 3.

Unequal opportunities and outcomes are pervasive in commons, but conceptualization of social dilemmas in commons has typically focused on symmetric models of tragedy of the commons and prisoner’s dilemma. This paper looks at opportunities for agency in asymmetric contexts of structural advantage and disadvantage through the lens of simple game theory models of interdependent decision making in strategic situations.

Changes in the ranking of outcomes map transformations between different models of two-person two-choice situations (2x2 games) such as changing a symmetric prisoner’s dilemma into an asymmetric dilemma or a stag hunt game. Mapping the payoff space of such transformations shows that the vast majority of possible games are asymmetric. Asymmetric games with a single equilibrium with unequal outcomes make up almost half of the possible 2x2 games, but models of such situations have received little attention in social science research on environmental governance.

These asymmetric games of advantage and disadvantage illustrate how structural characteristics, such as alignment of dominant strategies, presence of alternative non-equilibrium outcomes, and pathways for transformation, shape the limits and opportunities for agency, including potential for agreements and institutional arrangements that could change situations to achieve better outcomes in terms of various criteria. In the context of the prevalence of asymmetric situations with unequal equilibrium solutions, this paper analyzes factors that may influence attempts to achieve better outcomes, including the role of threats, spite, care, persuasion, attitudes about fairness, availability of equitable alternatives, negotiations that link action situations, and sometimes difficult individual or collective decisions concerning exit, voice, loyalty, and fairness.

Keywords: asymmetric social situations, collective agency, periodic table of interdependence, suasion games, rambo games, topology of 2x2 games, unequal commons

Getting a group to adopt cooperative norms is an enduring challenge. Such cooperation is even harder for groups that interact across multiple environments. Groups of strangers often have to attain cooperative outcomes across a range of environments. We introduce a laboratory setting to test if groups can guide themselves to cooperative outcomes by manipulating the environmental parameters that shape their own emergent cooperation process. We test for cooperation in a set of games that impose different social dilemmas. These games vary in stability, efficiency, "alignment", and fairness. By offering agency over behavior along with second-order agency over the rules of the game, we understand emergent cooperation in naturalistic settings in which the rules of the game are themselves dynamic. The literature on transfer learning in games suggest that interactions between features are important and might aid or hinder the transfer of cooperative learning to new settings.