Characterising Land Holding Size Distributions in a Forest Reserve

This paper intends to characterise the land holding distributions in a Multi-Agent Based Simulation (MABS) model inspired by the Caparo Forest Reserve, in Venezuela. This forest has been highly intervened with and seriously altered by opportunistic, nomadic, land-seeking colonists. The distribution of land holding results from a process of land encroachment, allowed by a weak state showing ambiguous behaviour and regulations, permitting the rise of a land market in the forest area. A thorough understanding of this process is achieved by, first, modelling and simulating individual landowner\'s decision-making regarding land occupation, and secondly, characterising the collective land occupation process in the simulation model. The size distribution of land holding appears to be exponential rather than power law, as was initially expected. The paper not only explores whether leptokurtic distributions emerge in this complex social environment but also tries to identify the specific mechanisms and model assumptions that lead to these sorts of distributions, instead of alternative ones. Additionally, this paper relates these mechanisms to market structures and interactions, in order to give the results a richer real-world interpretation.Land-Use Modelling, Leptokurtic Distributions, Forest Reserves, MABS Applications

The Art of the Possible: Toward a Cognitive Model for Political Action Choice

The consideration of political action by individuals is constrained by what those people consider possible, in terms of not only their immediate actions but also in terms of what changes in the world those individuals believe could occur because of their, or others’, actions. However, there are two major complications to this picture: (a) people are heavily influenced by others they are in social contact with in terms of both goals and assessment of possibility, and (b) since what people do is influenced by what world-changes they consider possible, and people know this, what can change is influenced also by what others think others around them think is possible. Politics thus involves complex processes at several levels, including: the spread of goals and possibility assessments throughout a local social network, and adjustments in what people think about others’ possibility judgments. An implementable cognitive model suitable for building into an agent-based model is proposed, drawing on existing cognitive structures to simulate social contact, goal-directed action choice, negotiation and social norms

Eastern European Political Cultures: Modeling Studies

This collective volume introduces ten European authors and their researches on political culture modeling. They share the interest for the political methodology, on the one hand, and for the political culture of the Eastern European post-communist regimes and their transition to democracy, on the other hand. Their research papers have been peer-reviewed and accepted as papers of the 2nd edition of the European Conference on Political Attitudes and Mentalities, ECPAM’2013, organized as a virtual conference by the European Research Group on Political Attitudes and Mentalities, EPAM, on November 8th, 2013. The main theme of the conference has provided the subject of this collective volume: “Political Attitudes and Political Cultures: Theoretical, Analytical, Computational and Simulation Models”

Public procurement: award mechanisms and implementation process

This thesis investigates the choice of award mechanism and the process of implementing the award of contracts in public procurement. Public procurement is an activity conducted by the public sector to purchase goods and services. Government spending on public procurement accounts for 10% to 25% of GDP in each country (World Bank Group, 2017). Because of its large sharing in government expenditure, public procurement can shed light on important practical policy issues, including those as investigated here: the choice of award mechanism (i.e. the process for selecting contractors); the possibility of costly delays in awarding contracts; and the concern that corruption may lead to inefficient outcomes. This thesis uses public procurement data for the UK and other EU countries plus Iceland and Norway. These countries adopt the same benchmark award mechanisms (the EU benchmark award mechanisms). The EU benchmark award mechanisms are implementations of the award mechanisms defined by the World Trade Organisation (WTO) Agreement on Government Procurement (GPA), which influences the award mechanism arrangement in 88 countries. There are four EU benchmark award mechanisms: the open procedure, the restricted procedure, the negotiated procedure and the competitive dialogue. Few empirical studies have investigated these EU benchmark award mechanisms. This thesis contains three independent and interrelated studies. The first study examines the choice of award mechanism in the UK, using the logit model. The results show that UK public buyers choose award mechanisms that are consistent with the theoretical suggestions. When a contract is complex, a UK public buyer is likely to employ an award mechanism that allows for greater discretion of selection. It also provides evidence that public buyer's experience is an important factor in award mechanism choice. Also based on UK data, the second study compares the decision speed of awarding a contract, using the logit model and survival analysis. It uncovers that delay in contract award is a serious issue for public procurement, as almost half of the contracts in our sample experienced delays in contract awards. The empirical results show that the negotiated procedure (which contains negotiations) is likely to be associated with a more rapid decision speed and a lower probability of delay than the restricted procedure (which does not contain negotiations). Therefore, this study casts doubt on the general expectation of practitioners that negotiation causes delays. The third study explores the relationship between discretion, corruption and competition in public procurement. Based on the revenue equivalence theorem and extensive form game, it proposes a game theory model showing that discretion fosters corruption, which in turn depresses the number of bidders and softens price competition. This is a mechanism that the procurement literature agrees but few formal models exist. The OLS estimates show a negative correlation between corruption and the number of bidders and suggest that procuring agents may disguise the impact of corruption by inflating the estimated contract value

Exclusive Channels and Revenue Sharing in a Complementary Goods Market

This paper evaluates the joint impact of exclusive channels and revenue sharing on suppliers and retailers in a hybrid duopoly common retailer and exclusive channel model. The model bridges the gap in the literature on hybrid multichannel supply chains with bilateral complementary products and services with or without revenue sharing. The analysis indicates that, without revenue sharing, the suppliers are reluctant to form exclusive deals with the retailers; thus, no equilibrium results. With revenue sharing from the retailers to the suppliers, it can be an equilibrium strategy for the suppliers and retailers to form exclusive deals. Bargaining solutions are provided to determine the revenue sharing rates. Our additional results suggest forming exclusive deals becomes less desirable for the suppliers if revenue sharing is also in place under nonexclusivity. In our extended discussion, we also study the impact of channel asymmetry, an alternative model with fencing, composite package competition, and enhanced price-dependent revenue sharing

Optimising cost and availability estimates at the bidding stage of performance-based contracting

Performance-Based Contracting (PBC), e.g. Contracting for Availability (CfA), has been extensively applied in many industry sectors such as defence, aerospace and railway. Under PBC, complex support activities (e.g. maintenance, training, etc.) are outsourced, under mid to long term contracting arrangements, to maintain certain level of systems’ performance (e.g. availability). However, building robust cost and availability estimates is particularly challenging at the bidding stage because therei is lack of methods and limited availability of data for analysis. Driven by this contextual challenge this PhD aims to develop a process to simulate and optimise cost and availability estimates at the bidding stage of CfA. The research methodology follows a human-centred design approach, focusing on the end-user stakeholders. An interaction with seven manufacturing organisations involved in the bidding process of CfA enabled to identify the state-of-practice and the industry needs, and a review of literature in PBC and cost estimation enabled to identify the research gaps. A simulation model for cost and availability trade-off and estimation (CATECAB) has been developed, to support cost engineers during the bidding preparation. Also, a multi-objective genetic algorithm (EMOGA) has been developed to combine with the CATECAB and build a cost and availability estimation and optimisation model (CAEOCAB). Techniques such as Monte-Carlo simulation, bootstrapping resampling, multi-regression analysis and genetic algorithms have been applied. This model is able to estimate the optimal investment in the attributes that impact the availability of the systems, according to total contract cost, availability and duration targets. The validation of the models is performed by means of four case studies with twenty-one CfA scenarios, in the maritime and air domains. The outcomes indicate a representable accuracy for the estimates produced by the models, which has been considered suitable for the early stages of the bidding process

What to bid and when to stop

Negotiation is an important activity in human society, and is studied by various disciplines, ranging from economics and game theory, to electronic commerce, social psychology, and artificial intelligence. Traditionally, negotiation is a necessary, but also time-consuming and expensive activity. Therefore, in the last decades there has been a large interest in the automation of negotiation, for example in the setting of e-commerce. This interest is fueled by the promise of automated agents eventually being able to negotiate on behalf of human negotiators.Every year, automated negotiation agents are improving in various ways, and there is now a large body of negotiation strategies available, all with their unique strengths and weaknesses. For example, some agents are able to predict the opponent's preferences very well, while others focus more on having a sophisticated bidding strategy. The problem however, is that there is little incremental improvement in agent design, as the agents are tested in varying negotiation settings, using a diverse set of performance measures. This makes it very difficult to meaningfully compare the agents, let alone their underlying techniques. As a result, we lack a reliable way to pinpoint the most effective components in a negotiating agent.There are two major advantages of distinguishing between the different components of a negotiating agent's strategy: first, it allows the study of the behavior and performance of the components in isolation. For example, it becomes possible to compare the preference learning component of all agents, and to identify the best among them. Second, we can proceed to mix and match different components to create new negotiation strategies., e.g.: replacing the preference learning technique of an agent and then examining whether this makes a difference. Such a procedure enables us to combine the individual components to systematically explore the space of possible negotiation strategies.To develop a compositional approach to evaluate and combine the components, we identify structure in most agent designs by introducing the BOA architecture, in which we can develop and integrate the different components of a negotiating agent. We identify three main components of a general negotiation strategy; namely a bidding strategy (B), possibly an opponent model (O), and an acceptance strategy (A). The bidding strategy considers what concessions it deems appropriate given its own preferences, and takes the opponent into account by using an opponent model. The acceptance strategy decides whether offers proposed by the opponent should be accepted.The BOA architecture is integrated into a generic negotiation environment called Genius, which is a software environment for designing and evaluating negotiation strategies. To explore the negotiation strategy space of the negotiation research community, we amend the Genius repository with various existing agents and scenarios from literature. Additionally, we organize a yearly international negotiation competition (ANAC) to harvest even more strategies and scenarios. ANAC also acts as an evaluation tool for negotiation strategies, and encourages the design of negotiation strategies and scenarios.We re-implement agents from literature and ANAC and decouple them to fit into the BOA architecture without introducing any changes in their behavior. For each of the three components, we manage to find and analyze the best ones for specific cases, as described below. We show that the BOA framework leads to significant improvements in agent design by wining ANAC 2013, which had 19 participating teams from 8 international institutions, with an agent that is designed using the BOA framework and is informed by a preliminary analysis of the different components.In every negotiation, one of the negotiating parties must accept an offer to reach an agreement. Therefore, it is important that a negotiator employs a proficient mechanism to decide under which conditions to accept. When contemplating whether to accept an offer, the agent is faced with the acceptance dilemma: accepting the offer may be suboptimal, as better offers may still be presented before time runs out. On the other hand, accepting too late may prevent an agreement from being reached, resulting in a break off with no gain for either party. We classify and compare state-of-the-art generic acceptance conditions. We propose new acceptance strategies and we demonstrate that they outperform the other conditions. We also provide insight into why some conditions work better than others and investigate correlations between the properties of the negotiation scenario and the efficacy of acceptance conditions.Later, we adopt a more principled approach by applying optimal stopping theory to calculate the optimal decision on the acceptance of an offer. We approach the decision of whether to accept as a sequential decision problem, by modeling the bids received as a stochastic process. We determine the optimal acceptance policies for particular opponent classes and we present an approach to estimate the expected range of offers when the type of opponent is unknown. We show that the proposed approach is able to find the optimal time to accept, and improves upon all existing acceptance strategies.Another principal component of a negotiating agent's strategy is its ability to take the opponent's preferences into account. The quality of an opponent model can be measured in two different ways. One is to use the agent's performance as a benchmark for the model's quality. We evaluate and compare the performance of a selection of state-of-the-art opponent modeling techniques in negotiation. We provide an overview of the factors influencing the quality of a model and we analyze how the performance of opponent models depends on the negotiation setting. We identify a class of simple and surprisingly effective opponent modeling techniques that did not receive much previous attention in literature.The other way to measure the quality of an opponent model is to directly evaluate its accuracy by using similarity measures. We review all methods to measure the accuracy of an opponent model and we then analyze how changes in accuracy translate into performance differences. Moreover, we pinpoint the best predictors for good performance. This leads to new insights concerning how to construct an opponent model, and what we need to measure when optimizing performance.Finally, we take two different approaches to gain more insight into effective bidding strategies. We present a new classification method for negotiation strategies, based on their pattern of concession making against different kinds of opponents. We apply this technique to classify some well-known negotiating strategies, and we formulate guidelines on how agents should bid in order to be successful, which gives insight into the bidding strategy space of negotiating agents. Furthermore, we apply optimal stopping theory again, this time to find the concessions that maximize utility for the bidder against particular opponents. We show there is an interesting connection between optimal bidding and optimal acceptance strategies, in the sense that they are mirrored versions of each other.Lastly, after analyzing all components separately, we put the pieces back together again. We take all BOA components accumulated so far, including the best ones, and combine them all together to explore the space of negotiation strategies.We compute the contribution of each component to the overall negotiation result, and we study the interaction between components. We find that combining the best agent components indeed makes the strongest agents. This shows that the component-based view of the BOA architecture not only provides a useful basis for developing negotiating agents but also provides a useful analytical tool. By varying the BOA components we are able to demonstrate the contribution of each component to the negotiation result, and thus analyze the significance of each. The bidding strategy is by far the most important to consider, followed by the acceptance conditions and finally followed by the opponent model.Our results validate the analytical approach of the BOA framework to first optimize the individual components, and then to recombine them into a negotiating agent

"I tell you what we <i>could</i> do, we <i>could</i> say, cut it to a hundred and ninety-five, and offer you a significant discount on breakfast" - Expressing Commitment in Business Discourse : An Empirical Analysis of Offers in Irish English Negotiations

In the present study it is claimed that the outcome of a negotiation is the result of the interactive dealing with offers during the negotiation process. The general importance of offers and their strategic potential is recognised by negotiation researchers and authors of best-selling 'how to negotiate' guides alike. Nevertheless, there are only very few empirical studies on negotiation which examine offer utterances and longer sequences in detail. The current study seeks to contribute to filling this gap. Offers are analysed on all discourse levels: the individual utterance on the level of act, supportive moves accompanying offers, offer exchanges and sequences, and offer occurrences on the level of phase. Thus, a model emerges which can be used to describe the nature of offers in business negotiations, independent of the type of negotiation scenario or culture of the participants. Based on the results of earlier works on offers in everyday conversation and in negotiations, a comprehensive range of aspects related to offers is analysed: pragmatic roles of the negotiators, their relational work, the contingency aspect of offers, offer topics, and offer realisation strategies. The analysis of the interactional structure of offer exchanges and sequences, including elicited vs. non-elicited offers, requests for offers, and offer responses, uncovers further interesting patterns. Light is also shed on the strategic value of offers in a more general sense. Two broader topic areas are of particular interest and are described in great detail. They reflect negotiation patterns which are observable across all discourse levels: first, reciprocity and exchange, and second, recursiveness. The present study takes an integrative approach by combining different methodologies and theories: linguistic pragmatics (especially speech act theory), discourse analysis, and conversation analysis. What is more, the results are related to the findings from studies of argumentation in spoken discourse and from non-linguistic approaches to negotiation, e.g. economics, business and management studies, social psychology, sociology, communication studies, and popular scientific manuals. The data consist of transcripts of Irish English dyadic face-to-face business negotiations. Eight Irish businessmen took part in four intracultural negotiation simulations. The sound recordings were subsequently transcribed and coded. The investigation is a qualitative in-depth case study. Nevertheless, some statistical aspects (frequency distributions) are taken into account when interpreting the data. However, the quantitative analysis is restricted to the description of absolute and relative frequencies. Although the focus is on offers, related speech actions, such as promises, proposals, concessions, pledges, are also taken into account. Their most significant common denominator is their commissive illocutionary force: the speaker expresses his willingness or intention to do something in the future, thereby placing himself under an obligation to the hearer. The primary function of offers in negotiations is to receive something with economic value in return, such as a product, a service, money, or the other party's commitment to do more business in the future. Offers, therefore, also have a strong directive component in this type of speech event. Similarities and differences between offers in negotiations and those typical of everyday situations are repeatedly highlighted throughout the study. In some respects, the present study confirms the findings of previous investigations of Irish English language use: the negotiators place great emphasis on cooperation, and they frequently employ indirect, evasive, and non-confrontational strategies. In other respects, however, all negotiators in the present study engage in a reciprocal relationship displaying elements of competition. They try to be assertive without appearing emphatic. The negotiators are at times direct and confrontational, are focused on the task, pursue their goals, and clearly communicate their intentions. Lacking comparative data, the question which of the observed features represent a 'typically Irish' communication style cannot be conclusively answered in this study. However, several arguments support the assumption that the findings are rather indicative of the genre business negotiation, pointing to a strategic use of language. Offers are central to negotiation discourse, both quantitatively and qualitatively: three quarters of the Irish English negotiations under study are devoted to the communication of offers (including requests for offers, offer responses, and supportive moves). Offer-making is not exclusively tied to the seller role, nor is request for offer-making exclusively associated with the buyer role. The study also confirms earlier research that negotiation is a non-linear, interactive, and dynamic process. The negotiators' basis of decision-making constantly changes because in the course of the negotiation they acquire new pieces of information that modify their existing knowledge. Offers are not static. On the contrary, they are adapted by the negotiators to the needs of the negotiation situation with the aim of reaching an agreement which is acceptable to both sides."I tell you what we could do, we could say, cut it to a hundred and ninety-five, and offer you a significant discount on breakfast" - Eine empirische Analyse von Angeboten in irisch-englischen Geschäftsverhandlungen Die vorliegende Arbeit geht von der These aus, dass der Ausgang einer Verhandlung das Ergebnis des interaktiven Umgangs mit Angeboten während des Verhandlungsprozesses ist. Die allgemeine Bedeutung von Angeboten und ihr strategisches Potenzial wird sowohl von Verhandlungsforschern als auch von Autoren populärwissenschaftlicher Verhandlungsratgeber erkannt. Jedoch gibt es nur sehr wenige empirische Verhandlungsstudien, die Angebotsäußerungen und längere -sequenzen im Detail untersuchen. Diese Lücke möchte die vorliegende Studie schließen. Angebote werden auf allen Diskursebenen untersucht: Einzeläußerungen auf der Aktebene, unterstützende Züge, welche Angebote begleiten, Angebotsaustausche und -sequenzen, und das Vorkommen von Angeboten auf der Ebene der Phase. Es wird somit ein Instrumentarium entwickelt, mit dessen Hilfe Angebote in Geschäftsverhandlungen beschrieben werden können, unabhängig von der Art des Verhandlungsszenarios und der Kulturzugehörigkeit der Teilnehmer. In Bezugnahme auf Ergebnisse früherer Arbeiten zu Angeboten in der Alltagskommunikation und in Verhandlungen wird eine ganze Reihe von Aspekten analysiert, die mit Angeboten in Zusammenhang stehen: pragmatische Rollen der Verhandlungspartner, ihre Beziehungsarbeit, der sogenannte Contingency-Aspekt von Angeboten, Angebotsthemen sowie Realisierungsstrategien. Die Analyse der Interaktionsstruktur von Angebotsaustauschen und sequenzen, einschließlich elizitierten vs. nicht-elizitierten Angeboten, Aufforderungen zu einem Angebot und Antworten auf Angebote, deckt weitere beachtenswerte Muster auf. Außerdem wird der strategische Wert von Angeboten in einem allgemeineren Sinne herausgearbeitet. Zwei übergeordnete Themen sind von besonderem Interesse und werden detailliert beschrieben. Es handelt sich dabei um Muster, welche auf allen Diskursebenen beobachtet werden können: zum einen Reziprozität und Austausch und zum anderen Rekursivität. Die Herangehensweise der Studie ist integrativ, da sie verschiedene Methodologien und Theorien miteinander verbindet: linguistische Pragmatik (v.a. Sprechakttheorie), Diskursanalyse und Konversationsanalyse. Darüber hinaus werden die Ergebnisse in Bezug gesetzt zu Erkenntnissen aus Studien zur Argumentation in gesprochener Sprache und zu Erkenntnissen aus nicht-linguistischen Veröffentlichungen zu Verhandlungen, z.B. Wirtschaftswissenschaften, Managementforschung, Sozialpsychologie, Kommunikationswissenschaft oder populärwissenschaftliche Handbücher. Das Datenkorpus besteht aus Transkripten von dyadischen Geschäftsverhandlungen im irischen Englisch. Acht irische Geschäftsleute nahmen an face-to-face intrakulturellen Verhandlungssimulationen teil. Die Tonaufnahmen wurden anschließend transkribiert und kodiert. Bei der Untersuchung handelt es sich eine detaillierte Fallstudie; sie ist daher qualitativer Natur. Nichtsdestotrotz werden einige statistische Aspekte bei der Datenauswertung berücksichtigt. Die quantitative Analyse beschränkt sich hier jedoch auf die Beschreibung absoluter und relativer Häufigkeiten. Obwohl der Fokus auf Angeboten (offers) liegt, werden auch verwandte Sprechhandlungen wie etwa Zugeständnisse (concessions), Vorschläge (proposals), Versprechen (promises) und Zusicherungen (pledges) berücksichtigt. Ihr größter gemeinsamer Nenner ist ihre kommissive illokutionäre Kraft: Der Sprecher drückt seine Bereitschaft oder Absicht aus, etwas in der Zukunft zu tun, wodurch er sich dem Hörer gegenüber verpflichtet. Die wichtigste Funktion von Angeboten in Verhandlungen ist, etwas von wirtschaftlichem Wert im Austausch zu erhalten, etwa ein Produkt, eine Dienstleistung, Geld oder die Zusicherung des anderen, in Zukunft weiterhin Geschäfte miteinander zu machen. Daher haben Angebote immer auch ein starkes direktives Element in dieser Art von Sprechereignis. Ähnlichkeiten mit und Unterschiede zwischen Angeboten, die Sprecher in Verhandlungen machen und solchen, die typisch für Alltagssituationen sind, werden im Verlauf der Arbeit immer wieder beleuchtet. In mancherlei Hinsicht bestätigt die vorliegende Studie die Ergebnisse früherer Untersuchungen zum Sprachgebrauch im irischen Englischen: Die Verhandlungspartner legen großen Wert auf Kooperation, und sie verwenden häufig indirekte, ausweichende und nicht-konfrontative Strategien. Andererseits stehen jedoch alle Verhandlungspartner in der vorliegenden Studie in einer wechselseitigen Beziehung zueinander, die Elemente von Wettbewerb aufzeigt. Sie versuchen, durchsetzungsstark zu sein, ohne bestimmend zu wirken. Die Gesprächspartner sind mitunter direkt und konfrontativ, aufgabenfokussiert, verfolgen ihre Ziele und kommunizieren deutlich ihre Absichten. Wegen fehlender Vergleichsdaten kann die Frage, welche der in der vorliegenden Studie beobachteten Merkmale einen 'typisch irischen' Kommunikationsstil widerspiegeln, nicht hinreichend beantwortet werden. Einige Argumente sprechen aber für die Annahme, dass die Ergebnisse eher kennzeichnend für das Genre Geschäftsverhandlung sind, was auf eine strategische Verwendung von Sprache hindeutet. Angebote sind von zentraler Bedeutung für den Verhandlungsdiskurs, sowohl in quantitativer als auch in qualitativer Hinsicht: drei Viertel der hier untersuchten irisch englischen Verhandlungen sind der Kommunikation von Angeboten gewidmet (einschließlich Aufforderungen zu Angeboten, Reaktionen auf Angebote sowie unterstützende Züge). Das Unterbreiten von Angeboten ist nicht ausschließlich auf die Verkäuferrolle beschränkt, ebenso wenig wie das Vorbringen von Aufforderungen zu einem Angebot auf die Käuferrolle beschränkt ist. Die Studie bekräftigt außerdem frühere Forschungen, denen zufolge eine Verhandlung ein nicht-linearer, interaktiver und dynamischer Prozess ist. Die Entscheidungsbasis der Verhandlungspartner verändert sich unentwegt, weil diese im Laufe der Verhandlung neue Informationen erhalten, welche ihr bestehendes Wissen modifizieren. Angebote sind nicht statisch. Im Gegenteil werden sie von den Verhandlungspartnern an die Erfordernisse der Verhandlungssituation angepasst mit dem Ziel, am Ende eine für beide Seiten akzeptable Übereinkunft zu erzielen

Mixing Dyadic and Deliberative Opinion Dynamics in an Agent-Based Model of Group Decision-Making

International audienceIn this article, we propose an agent-based model of opinion diffusion and voting where influence among individuals and deliberation in a group are mixed. The model is inspired from social modeling, as it describes an iterative process of collective decision-making that repeats a series of interindividual influences and collective deliberation steps, and studies the evolution of opinions and decisions in a group. It also aims at founding a comprehensive model to describe collective decision-making as a combination of two different paradigms: argumentation theory and ABM-influence models, which are not obvious to combine as a formal link between them is required. In our model, we find that deliberation, through the exchange of arguments, reduces the variance of opinions and the proportion of extremists in a population as long as not too much deliberation takes place in the decision processes. Additionally, if we define the correct collective decisions in the system in terms of the arguments that should be accepted, allowing for more deliberation favors convergence towards the correct decisions

Games as tools to address conservation conflicts

Conservation conflicts represent complex multilayered problems that are challenging to study. We explore the utility of theoretical, experimental, and constructivist approaches to games to help to understand and manage these challenges. We show how these approaches can help to develop theory, understand patterns in conflict, and highlight potentially effective management solutions. The choice of approach should be guided by the research question and by whether the focus is on testing hypotheses, predicting behaviour, or engaging stakeholders. Games provide an exciting opportunity to help to unravel the complexity in conflicts, while researchers need an awareness of the limitations and ethical constraints involved. Given the opportunities, this field will benefit from greater investment and development