When One Decides for Many: the Effect of Delegation Methods on Cooperation in Simulated Inter-Group Conflicts

The study explores the evolution of decision strategies and the emergence of cooperation in simulated societies. In the context of an inter-group conflict, we simulate three different institutions for the aggregation of attitudes. We assume that: (a) the conflict can be modeled as an iterated Prisoner's Dilemma played by two decision makers, each representing her group for a fixed duration; (b) the performance of each group's representative influences her group members and, consequently, her prospects to be reelected. Our main objectives are: (1) to investigate the effects of three power-delegation mechanisms: Random Representation, Mean Representation, and Minimal Winning Coalition representation, on the emergence of representatives' decision strategies, (2) to investigate the effect of the frequency of elections on the evolving inter-group relations. Outcomes of 1080 simulations show that the emergence of cooperation is strongly influenced by the delegation mechanism, the election frequency, and the interaction between these two factors.