Weeks 7 and 8

WEEK 7

As I continued working on the model using BDM's four questions, it became increasingly apparent to me that without having access to his algorithm, it would be immensely difficult to recreate his work, which was essentially what I was trying to do. But, since I had already grouped the players into two teams, basically Democrats and Republicans, I could develop a 2x2 game with four possible outcomes. By this time, I finished reading Prisoner's Dilemma, which mainly discusses two player games. I created a scale from 0 to 10, where 0 equals one side completely failing to meet any of their intended objectives and 10 equals one side completely succeeding to meet all of their intended objectives. Furthermore, the numbers will seem counter-intuitive when taken at face value. For example, if Democrats cooperate and Republicans do not cooperate, Democrats will adopt at least a few Republican ideas in the final bill, therefore the Republicans will have a lower number because they would not be able to argue that Democrats acted in a completely partisan manner. The opposite would happen if Democrats do not cooperate and Republicans do cooperate (i.e. – Dems completely ignore sound Republican ideas, thus Republicans can argue the Dems acted in a partisan way). If both sides cooperate, although the final bill will not be the most ideal for either side, the political benefits of cooperation exceed the perceived weaknesses. If both sides do not cooperate, the Dems will push through a bill that has no Republican ideas, but since the Republicans did not cooperate themselves, they would not be able to argue credibly that the Dems alone acted in a partisan manner, thus even though the bill would encompass everything the Dems wanted, public opinion would likely not favor their position. Based on this model, I would forecast that both Democrats and Republicans would choose to cooperate with each other and each receive a payoff of 5. This is the most optimal outcome because cooperation yields the highest possible payoffs (5 or 7) regardless of what the other player chooses. The matrix I created is at the top of the page.

WEEK 8

This week, I quickly realized that I would need to update the matrix due to new polling data and the announcement of a Securities and Exchange Commission investigation into Goldman Sachs. Financial reform legislation clearly had the support of the general public and President Obama had more trust on the issue than Congressional Republicans. Each of these indicated that Democrats had the advantage in the debate, therefore the matrix needed a modification.

I re-operationalized what the scale meant. Back in Week 7, I created a scale from 0 to 10, where 0 equals one side completely failing to meet any of their intended objectives and 10 equals one side completely succeeding to meet all of their intended objectives. I changed that to 0 meaning that the player preferred no reform whatsoever and wanted to maintain the status quo. A score of 10 meant that the player wanted a complete overhaul of the financial system that completely altered the status quo. Generally, the more liberal the player (at least on this issue), the higher the score the individual received and the more conservative the player (at least on this issue), the lower the score the individual received. Also, I began to feel a bit nervous regarding financial reform. Senators Dodd and Shelby were negotiating in the Senate Financial Services Committee and it seemed like a deal to move debate on the legislation to the floor was imminent. Once that happened, passage of the bill could either occur very swiftly (which for the purposes of this study, I did not want to happen) or it could drag out. Luckily, the bill had not passed yet and my study was not yet nullified.