Tech

Has Math Screwed the Syrian Revolution?

By Abraham Riesman

It’s been one of those weeks: The kind where the Syrian government bombs neighborhoods into dust, a hundred (or so) people die, and despite international condemnations, the black hole of the uprising just keeps swirling. Is there any reason for hope? I decided to ask someone who predicts the future for a living.

For more than three decades, NYU professor and game theorist Bruce Bueno de Mesquita has been using a carefully refined mathematical model to perform political forecasts. His publications, such as 2011’s The Dictator’s Handbook: Why Bad Behavior is Almost Always Good Politics, are sought after in the private and public sectors. The CIA, the State Department, and the Department of Defense are all regular clients—in fact, the CIA once said his model popped out accurate predictions 90% of the time.

His main tool is selectorate theory. It’s a subset of game theory that focuses on political leaders’ relationship to the “selectorate”—people who nominally have a say in picking a leader. At the core of any selectorate is what’s called the “winning coalition”—the people who actually get to determine whether or not a leader gets to stay in power. And de Mesquita gives us some insight on this.

Read the interview on Motherboard here.