Signaling Games in Political Science

This monograph surveys the current literature on game theoretic models of strategic information transmission in politics. Within each topic the principal focus is on how the presence of asymmetric information enriches the strategic environment of the participants.

First Published in 1991. This monograph surveys the current literature on game theoretic models of strategic information transmission in politics. Such work generalises earlier models by allowing relevant information to be asymmetrically held by agents, and subsequently studying the willingness and ability of these agents to transmit information through their actions. The monograph includes models of agenda control in legislatures and elections, veto threats and debate, electoral competition, regulation building, bargaining in the shadow of war and sophisticated voting. Within each topic the principal focus is on how the presence of asymmetric information enriches the strategic environment of the participants as well as how it rationalises certain types of political behavior and political institutions as equilibrium phenomena in an ''incomplete information'' world.