Wargaming for International Relations research
Name
SSRN-id3676665.pdf
Description
Accepted version
Size
966.18 KB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
a1363dee39645b921884170c77a8fa7b
Author(s)
Lin-Greenberg, Erik
Pauly, Reid BC
Schneider, Jacquelyn G
Date Issued
2022
Journal
European Journal of International Relations
Publisher
SAGE Publications
Citation
Lin-Greenberg, Erik, Pauly, Reid BC and Schneider, Jacquelyn G. 2022. "Wargaming for International Relations research." European Journal of International Relations, 28 (1).
Version
Author's final manuscript
Abstract
Political scientists are increasingly integrating wargames into their research. Either by fielding original games or by leveraging archival wargame materials, researchers can study rare events or topics where evidence is difficult to observe. However, scholars have little guidance on how to apply this novel methodological approach to political science research. This article evaluates how political scientists can use wargames as a method of scholarly inquiry and sets out to establish a research agenda for wargaming in International Relations. We first differentiate wargames from other methodological approaches and highlight their ecological validity. We then chart out how researchers can build and run their own games or draw from archival wargames for theory development and testing. In doing so, we explain how researchers can navigate issues of recruitment, bias, validity, and generalizability when using wargames for research, and identify ways to evaluate the potential benefits and pitfalls of wargames as a tool of inquiry. We argue that wargames offer unique opportunities for political scientists to study decision-making processes both in and beyond the International Relations subfield.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Political Science
Terms of Use
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike
Persistent DSpace Link
DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1177/13540661211064090
