Chwe Rational Ritual

Culture, Coordination, and Common Knowledge
With a New afterword by the author
ISBN: 978-1-4008-4643-6
Verlag: De Gruyter
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: Adobe DRM (»Systemvoraussetzungen)

E-Book, Englisch, 152 Seiten

Why do Internet, financial service, and beer commercials dominate Super Bowl advertising? How do political ceremonies establish authority? Why does repetition characterize anthems and ritual speech? Why were circular forms favored for public festivals during the French Revolution? This book answers these questions using a single concept: common knowledge.

Game theory shows that in order to coordinate its actions, a group of people must form "common knowledge." Each person wants to participate only if others also participate. Members must have knowledge of each other, knowledge of that knowledge, knowledge of the knowledge of that knowledge, and so on. Michael Chwe applies this insight, with striking erudition, to analyze a range of rituals across history and cultures. He shows that public ceremonies are powerful not simply because they transmit meaning from a central source to each audience member but because they let audience members know what other members know. For instance, people watching the Super Bowl know that many others are seeing precisely what they see and that those people know in turn that many others are also watching. This creates common knowledge, and advertisers selling products that depend on consensus are willing to pay large sums to gain access to it. Remarkably, a great variety of rituals and ceremonies, such as formal inaugurations, work in much the same way.

By using a rational-choice argument to explain diverse cultural practices, Chwe argues for a close reciprocal relationship between the perspectives of rationality and culture. He illustrates how game theory can be applied to an unexpectedly broad spectrum of problems, while showing in an admirably clear way what game theory might hold for scholars in the social sciences and humanities who are not yet acquainted with it.

In a new afterword, Chwe delves into new applications of common knowledge, both in the real world and in experiments, and considers how generating common knowledge has become easier in the digital age.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Chwe, Michael Suk-Young

Fachgebiete

• Sozialwissenschaften Politikwissenschaft Politikwissenschaft Allgemein Politische Geschichte
• Geisteswissenschaften Philosophie Philosophische Logik, Argumentationstheorie
• Mathematik | Informatik Mathematik Operations Research Spieltheorie
• Sozialwissenschaften Politikwissenschaft Politikwissenschaft Allgemein Politische Theorie, Politische Philosophie
• Interdisziplinäres Wissenschaften Wissenschaften Interdisziplinär Wirtschafts- und Sozialwissenschaften

Inhaltsverzeichnis

List of Figures and Tables ix

Preface xiii

1. Introduction 3

What This Book Is Good For 3

The Argument 8

Coordination Problems 11

Common Knowledge 13

Where the Argument Comes From 16

2. Applications 19

Ceremonies and Authority 19

How Do Rituals Work? 25

Inward-Facing Circles 30

On the Waterfront 33

Believe the Hupe 37

The Price of Publicity 49

Strong Links and Weak Links 61

The Chapel in Panopticon 66

3. Elaborations 74

Competing Explanations 74

Is Common Knowledge an Impossible Ideal? 76

Meaning and Common Knowledge 79

Contesting Common Knowledge 83

Common Knowledge and History 87

Common Knowledge and Group Identity 91

4. Conclusion

Appendix. The Argument Expressed Diagrammatically 101

References 113

Afterword to the 2013 Edition 127

Index 135

Über Autor(innen)

Michael Suk-Young Chwe is Associate Professor of political science at the University of California, Los Angeles and author of Jane Austen, Game Theorist (Princeton).