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Telangana Conundrum: The Predictioneer's Game Using Bruce Bueno de Mesquita Model
Telangana Conundrum: The Predictioneer's Game Using Bruce Bueno de Mesquita Model
In this exercise we to use Bruce Bueno de Mesquita’s Perdictioneer’s Game to predict the possible outcome for this problem.
About Predictioneer’s Game
It is based loosely on Black’s voter theory, and it works like this: To predict how leaders will behave in a conflict, Bueno de Mesquita starts
with a specific prediction he wants to make, then interviews four or five experts who know the situation well. He identifies the stakeholders
who will exert pressure on the outcome (typically 20 or 30 players) and gets the experts to assign values to the stakeholders in four
categories: What outcome do the players want? How hard will they work to get it? How much clout can they exert on others? How firm is
their resolve? Each value is expressed as a number on its own arbitrary scale, like 0 to 200.
Then the math begins, some of which is surprisingly simple. If you merely sort the players according to how badly they want a bomb and
how much support they have among others, you will end up with a reasonably good prediction. But the other variables enable the computer
model to perform much more complicated assessments. In essence, it looks for possible groupings of players who would be willing to shift
their positions toward one another if they thought that doing so would be to their advantage. The model begins by working out the average
position of all the players — the ―middle ground‖ that exerts a gravitational force on the whole negotiation. Then it compares each player
with every other player, estimating whether one will be able to persuade or coerce the others to move toward its position, based on the
power, resolve and positioning of everyone else. (Power isn’t everything. If the most powerful player is on the fringe of an issue, and a
cluster of less-powerful players are closer to the middle, they might exert greater influence.) After estimating how much or how little each
player might budge, the software recalculates the middle ground, which shifts as the players move. A ―round‖ is over; the software repeats
the process, round after round. The game ends when players no longer move very much from round to round — this indicates they have
compromised as much as they ever will. At that point, assuming no player with veto power had refused to compromise, the final average
middle-ground position of all the players is the result — the official prediction of how the issue will resolve itself. (Bueno de Mesquita does
not express his forecasts in probabilistic terms; he says an event will transpire or it won’t.)
Chiranjeevi 10 0 85 36 0 0 CBN 30 15 70 55 0 0
MIM 10 55 70 80 0 0 KCR 40 95 90 30 0 0
INC(T) 10 85 100 25 0 0 DMK 50 5 55 45 0 0
BJP 10 95 60 15 0 0 Mamata 50 5 60 65 0 0
KRosaiah 15 15 75 90 0 0 Pchidambaram 65 38 50 40 0 0
SharadPawar 15 15 20 90 0 0 PranabM 75 4 60 80 0 0
YSJ-Group 20 5 80 35 0 0 INC 110 8 30 100 0 0
TDP(AP) 25 0 90 40 0 0
SoniaG 125 15 55 90 1 0
No shocks allowed
w.r.t Influence or
Salience. Clean Run
of the Model
Model Output – Run 2
Both Telanganavadis
and Samaikya
Andhravadis are
allowed little/No
Flexibility.
No shocks allowed
w.r.t Influence or
Salience. Clean Run
of the Model
Analysis
When TELANGANA-vadi’s show NO/Little flexibility and SAMAIKYA ANDHRA-vadi’s show lot of flexibility
the model predicts Separate Telangana in next 2-5 years.
When both TELANGANA-vadi’s and SAMAIKYA ANDHRA-vadi’s show NO/Little flexibility the model
predicts the compromise scenario to have HYDERABAD as the common capital of two separate states
TELANGANA and SEEMANDHRA
Unless most of the influenced players divert their FOCUS on this issue and HARDEN their positions the
outcome doesn’t change much.