Higher education in Asian countries and the role of international ...

3.5 Game theory and IGOs
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The increased number of IOs and their enhanced influence over national and international
policies of the states have made the state-IGOs relations more complex and the cooperation
process more challenging. Being significant international players the states and the IGOs play
different strategic games in which the level and effectiveness of state-IGOs and sate-state
cooperation or coordination varies in different situations. Though IGOs‟ participation in the
development and promotion of education is there for the last many decades, their active
participation in higher education sub-sector is a recent phenomenon. The recent increase, at
national and international levels, in the demand of and new developments in the higher education
requires more effective linkage among states and IGOs to meet these challenges. The Game
theory has proved itself as a useful tool to study complex process of IGO-state relations and
effectiveness. Game theory is applied side of mathematics used to model strategic situations
based on available set of choices.
3.5.1 Studying IGOs through Game theory
Game theory is a rational side of social sciences that is based on mathematical method of
decision-making in which a competitive situation is analyzed to determine the optimal course of
action for an interested party (The American Heritag Dictionary, 2009). This theory helps to
foresee and explain the actions of all agents or actors or players engaged in a situation. It is
applied in decision making and in solving social and ethical dilemmas. In Game theory,
basically, a Game is a situation where players are aware that their actions influence each other
and every game has a set of strategies and payoffs for each player or participant. These payoffs
depend on both the choices made by them. The game theory helps to find equilibrium in an
actual or a virtual situation where each actor adopts strategies depending on its role. Game
theorists have developed many equilibrium concepts to capture the idea of interaction in a game
i.e. the Nash equilibrium, Strong Nash equilibrium, Proper equilibrium, Quasi-perfect
equilibrium, Epsilon-equilibrium, Correlated equilibrium, Sequential equilibrium, Self-
confirming equilibrium and evolutionarily stable strategy.
The Game theory comprised of many types of games, which can be helpful to understand moves
and action players or agents. These games are of different types and it includes: Cooperative or
non-cooperative games; symmetric and asymmetric games; zero-sum and non zero-sum games;