Wargaming for Political Science Research

Lin-Greenberg, Erik; Pauly, Reid; Schneider, Jacquelyn

doi:10.2139/ssrn.3676665

Cited by 5 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 42 publications

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“…Indeed, this is one of the potentials of educational wargaming; ideally, it will illuminate nuances and uncertainties and make room for several interpretations, facilitated by students playing out a number of different perspectives in concert (Corbeil & Laveault, 2011, p. 463). Wargames can be a valuable educational tool in promoting immersion, interaction, cooperation, creativity, and exploration -and simply by being fun (Arnseth, 2006;Asal, 2005;Corbeil & Laveault, 2011;Lin-Greenberg et al, 2020;Shellman & Turan, 2006). Through these attributes, educational wargames can convey information, but they can also create knowledge in a more profound sense, and enhance the student's capacity for critical thinking and independent thought.…”

Section: Educational Wargames and Learning Modesmentioning

confidence: 99%

To Learn or not to Learn: On the Importance of Mode Switching in Educational Wargames

Alme

Hvidsten

2022

Scandinavian Journal of Military Studies

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Conventional wisdom holds that educational wargames come with certain challengesfactors that can potentially hinder, rather than increase, learning -and that these must be mitigated. In this article, we argue that so-called challenges are unproblematic, even desirable, during the wargame. Underpinning this contention is the premise that learning requires a certain mode, and that in educational wargaming, two distinct modes are necessary: one in the wargame, and one in the debrief. Leaning on the pedagogical theory of John Dewey, we distinguish between the mode of experience during the game, and the mode of reflection after the game. What are traditionally conceived of as challenges are, in our mode-based framework, necessary factors in order to fully enter the mode of experience. What can hinder learning, however, is if students do not switch from the mode of experience to the mode of reflection after the game. Based on previous research, our own experiences conducting wargames, and interviews with students and professionals on learning through educational wargames, we suggest strategies for ensuring the mode switch from wargame to debrief, and draw implications for the development of wargaming as a social science method.

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Section: Educational Wargames and Learning Modesmentioning

confidence: 99%

To Learn or not to Learn: On the Importance of Mode Switching in Educational Wargames

Alme

Hvidsten

2022

Scandinavian Journal of Military Studies

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“…https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/8C458021C6FEC398064867A9B5EA938D a social science perspective on war-gaming as a research methodology (Schneider, 2017;Pauly, 2018;Valeriano, 2019a, 2019b). The perspective that wargames can add to our knowledge about crisis bargaining under novel technological settings is one we follow herein (Reddie et al, 2018;Lin-Greenberg et al, 2020).…”

Section: Wargames As Experimentsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Cyber Peace

2022

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The international community is too often focused on responding to the latest cyber-attack instead of addressing the reality of pervasive and persistent cyber conflict. From ransomware against the city government of Baltimore to state-sponsored campaigns targeting electrical grids in Ukraine and the U.S., we seem to have relatively little bandwidth left over to ask what we can hope for in terms of 'peace' on the Internet, and how to get there. It's also important to identify the long-term implications for such pervasive cyber insecurity across the public and private sectors, and how they can be curtailed. This edited volume analyzes the history and evolution of cyber peace and reviews recent international efforts aimed at promoting it, providing recommendations for students, practitioners and policymakers seeking an understanding of the complexity of international law and international relations involved in cyber peace. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.

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“…Similarly, social scientists have used games for decades to understand behavioral phenomena (Johnson et al, 2006). Despite the interest in experimental wargames, there is little work to help us understand what makes games experimental, when to use experimental versus observational games, and how researchers consider internal and external validity in experimental game design (Lin-Greenberg et al, 2020).…”

Section: Purposementioning

confidence: 99%

“…Social scientists have renewed interest in experimental wargaming. (Reddie et al, 2018; Lin-Greenberg, 2020; Schneider, 2017). So, what makes a wargame experimental?…”

Section: Experimentation and Wargamingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Wargaming as a Methodology: The International Crisis Wargame and Experimental Wargaming

Schechter

Schneider

Shaffer

2021

Simulation & Gaming

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Background. Wargaming has a long history as a tool for understanding the complexity of conflict. Although wargames have shown their relevance across topics and time, the immersive nature of wargames and the guild-like communities that surround them have often resisted the social scientific advances that occurred alongside the evolution of warfare. However, recent work raises new possibilities for integrating wargaming practices and social scientific methods. Purpose. Develop the experimental wargaming method and practice. Prioritizing the focus on iteration, control, and generalizability within experimental design can provide new opportunities for wargames to answer broader questions about decision-making, crisis behaviors, and patterns of outcomes. Method. The International Crisis Wargame developed in 2018 demonstrates the viability of experimental wargaming, and models the process of theorizing, designing, developing, and executing these wargames. It also identifies what makes games more or less experimental and details how experimental design influenced choices in the game. Conclusion. Experimental wargames are a promising new tool for both the social science and the wargaming communities. A proposed new research agenda for experimental design within wargames would support this nascent method

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Wargaming for Political Science Research

Cited by 5 publications

References 42 publications

To Learn or not to Learn: On the Importance of Mode Switching in Educational Wargames

To Learn or not to Learn: On the Importance of Mode Switching in Educational Wargames

Cyber Peace

Wargaming as a Methodology: The International Crisis Wargame and Experimental Wargaming

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