The Prisoner's Dilemma is often used in the teaching of
Political Science to
illustrate one reason why so many outcomes of real political systems are bad or flawed.
To correct Neil, a true Prisoner's Dilemma demands that an optimal solution requires all parties to co-operate. As an analogy, consider a murder where the only witnesses are other criminals. If all crooks keep silent they go free. But if even one of them talks, the others get the chair while the confessor gets to cop a plea, which lets him off with a light sentence.
Now, if the crooks could be sure that the other criminals would remain silent, they would co-operate and all would go free. The old Mafia omerta went a long way toward guaranteeing it in the old days, but serves no longer. And the cops know this, so they separate the prisoners and question them separately. In isolation, each criminal has to wonder if Lefty will sell them out. He has time to think about the consequences, which his interrogators will cheerfully remind him of. He is afraid, he does not trust. It is hard to trust under such circumstances.
This models many real life political situations, particularly in international relations. This is because we cannot read minds. Nations spend oodles of money trying to gain intelligence on what another country is doing, and most importantly, what they are thinking. Success is limited, even with agents, who may be doubles. And that is with nations we trust, even if the trust is imperfect. Only in a Tom Clancy novel is intelligence information so cut and dried.
Now consider two adversaries, seething with justifiable anger : Israel and the Palestinians. While both sides have their extremists in powerful positions, the rank and file in both communities wants peace, even if they disagree on the details. In order to gain peace, and the economic and poltical advantages it brings, they must co-operate. If Israel leaves its borders open, then it is more vulneralbe to Hamas suicide bombers. If Israel closes its borders -- which it often does-- then many Palestinians cannot work. That leads to additional poverty and resentment, feeding the hatred and helping Hamas recruit suicide bombers. If Israel could trust the Palestinian Authority to stop the suicide bombers, they could open their borders. That would build co-operation, and thus improve long term chances for peace. But they cannot, so defect.
From the Palestinian perspective, matters look similar. If they remain quiet, Israeli right-wingers will ignore them, and accelerate Jewish settlement construction. This process leads to many Palestinians being booted out of their homes, building resentment, and creating new obstacles to peace, that must be negotiated away. But if Palestinians choose violence, that strengthens the hand of Israeli extremists, and makes them less willing to negotiate. In essence, Palestinians do not trust Israel to negotiate in good faith. But the only action they see certain to catch Israeli attention leads to tit for tat that reduces the desire to make peace on both sides. Either way, both sides are hung on twin horns of the same dilemma. They must co-operate to gain peace. They cannot trust enough to sustain that co-operation.
Both sides are caught in the Prisoner's Dilemma. They are prisoners of their own history and mistrust. It is no comfort to know they are not the only people hung on this dilemma.