Cooperation Between the US and Russia Despite Conflicting Narratives — Herrera & Kydd (3.15.18)

Conflict between states or actors belonging to different identity groups is often accompanied by sharply divergent historical narratives about responsibility for past wrongs. Indeed, shared understanding of past events is often a constituitive element of a social identity, and these diverging narratives of the past can prevent cooperation in the present. In formal models of cooperation such as the Repeated Prisoner’s Dilemma, many strategies that facilitate cooperation depend upon shared beliefs about who is responsible for prior defections. Absent such agreement, these strategies are likely to perpetuate conflict rather than overcome it. In contrast, we examine alternative “blame-free” strategies that can sustain cooperation in the absence of shared beliefs about guilt for past transgressions. We present the results from a computer tournament of several strategies and show how if there are divergent perceptions, “temporary mutual punishment” is the the strategy that tends to prevail, if cooperation is possible at all. We consider this model of cooperation with a case study of the current context of U.S.-Russian relations since the Crimea crisis.