Thomas C. Schelling

Schelling--a 2005 Nobel Prize winner-- has been one of the four or five most important social scientists of the past fifty years, and this collection shows why. These essays convey his unique perspective on individuals and society. This perspective has several characteristics: it is strategic in that it assumes that an important part of people's behavior is motivated by the thought of influencing other people's expectations; it views the mind as being separable into two or more parts (rational/irrational; present-minded/future-minded); it is motivated by policy concerns--smoking and other addictions, global warming, segregation, nuclear war; and while it accepts many of the basic assumptions of economics--that people are forward-looking, rational decision makers, that resources are scarce, and that incentives are important--it is open to modifying them when appropriate, and open to the findings and insights of other social science disciplines.--From publisher description.

An examination of how decisions made by individuals combine to form unexpected and often counter-intuitive aggregate results.

Transcript of a lecture delivered on June 22, 2009.

Traditionally, Americans have viewed war as an alternative to diplomacy, and military strategy as the science of victory. Today, however, in our world of nuclear weapons, military power is not so much exercised as threatened. It is, Mr. Schelling says, bargaining power, and the exploitation of this power, for good or evil, to preserve peace or to threaten war, is diplomacy - the diplomacy of violence. The author concentrates in this book on the way in which military capabilites - real or imagined - are used, skillfully or clumsily, as bargaining power. He sees the steps taken by the US during the Berlin and Cuban crises as not merely preparations for engagement, but as signals to an enemy, with reports from the adversary's own military intelligence as our most important diplomatic communications.

Les conséquences des décisions individuelles sur les comportements collectifs. Une étude à partir de la théorie des jeux et des exemples concrets. L'auteur montre notamment comment nos prises de décision peuvent conduire à des comportements éloignés de nos attentes.