Lessons from a game or RISK

11.04.2004

On Tuesday, my International Relations class (PSCI 250) played a modified game of RISK. It's an in-class activity I developed 2+ years ago; it's quite a popular & valuable class exercise.

I divide the class into six teams (five "countries" & one group of NGOs). Of the five "countries", two are democracies, one is a semi-authoritarian regime, and two are closed-authoritarian regimes. The sixth team includes media (give information to participants), political players (e.g. a goal to bring down a specific "country"), or humanitarian agencies (e.g. prevent war between two or more teams). The board's placed in the middle of a room partitioned into five "territories" marked by thick blue tape. Each team has two minutes per turn.

The democracies are required to hold elections at the end of every round (we take a two-minute break). The three authoritarian regimes do not — unless their leader is doing extremely poorly (losing more than three territories on the board) or if I randomly call for elections (about twice in an hour). The borders between the democracies are porous (they can travel back & forth freely), as well as their border w/ the semi-authoritarian regime.

It's interesting to see the game progresses. At first, most students seem a bit confused, if not plain bored, by the whole experience. Leaders stand at the table, making decisions, usually w/ little input. But, as the game progresses, students get more & more excited (especially those in democracies) — even a weird sense of "nationalism" develops between the teams' "imagined communities" (in both literal & metaphysical sense). By the end of the two-hour class, the democratic side of the room is buzzing w/ activity, even breaking out into cheers when their side conquers territory. But even the citizens in the authoritarian regimes get excited if they're doing well, doggedly supporting their leader.

Second, the differences in how leaders act is remarkable. The democratic leaders soon begin to work closely w/ their "citizens" — even if they sometimes do the opposite at the table. In contrast, authoritarian leaders rarely speak to their "subjects" — or even dismissively wave them away when they ask what's going on. And. True to IR expectations, the democracies tend to cooperate against the authoritarian regimes, rarely (if ever) attacking each other. The authoritarian regimes tend to cooperate, but only suspiciously. One of the democracies usually emerges as the hegemon (this time it was Grey).

But it's an amazing little microcosm of world politics. Secret messages going back & forth between leaders, backroom deals, implicit threats of force to get one's objective, even preemptive strikes against perceived threats. It never ceases to amaze me.

The most striking thing is the little "nationalism" that develops. Two days after the in-class experience, Green (semi-authoritarian) members were still bitter towards Blue (democracy) members. How easily little national identities are forged! This was a two-hour experience in a board game — imagine how powerful communal attachments to flag & country are when you grow up your whole life in a specific place, w/ specific people around you.

Posted by Miguel at 01:52 PM

Comments

Butterfield facilitated a similar exercise in his Russian/East Eurpoean class a number of years ago. From a student's POV, it was a lot of fun. And apparently memorable.

Posted by: tom at November 4, 2004 02:50 PM

I remember doing that in 250. Like Sean said, "Not to sound like a kiss ass or anything, but that was pretty fun." I really have to figure out how to play that game better so I can do it with my own classes.

And your points about nationalism are true. I was on the blue team (democratic, open) and we for some reason engulfed and took over the red team (the other open democratic nation). I think we were trying to take over everyone. And on the red team's flag they wrote "red but blue at heart." Then all the closed states teams tried to gang up on us and take us down since we were the super power.

Posted by: Kara at November 4, 2004 04:00 PM