PD & IR

Beyond the Prisoners' Dilemma

Making Game Theory a Useful Part of Undergraduate

International Relations Classes1

George Ehrhardt

While game theory has a well-established place in the international relations literature, it still has

not found a similar place in the undergraduate classroom. With few exceptions, it only appears in

introductory textbooks as the nuclear arms race application of the prisoners' dilemma.

The fault for this gap, I believe, lies with those of us who use game theory in our own work.

We have failed to lay out exactly what game theory can offer the undergraduate curriculum, and

have not demonstrated how to integrate it into a standard class. In this paper, I hope to correct

this situation by describing what game theory can add to undergraduate understanding and

offering concrete advise for its implementation