Piotr Swistak
Biographic Data
| ID | 248509 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Piotr Swistak |
| GIVEN NAMES | Piotr |
| FAMILY NAME | Swistak |
| SIGNATURE | SWISTAK P |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Maryland, College Park |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-5597-3887 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 10 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 106 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 10 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1989 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 3 |
On Accountability and Hierarchy
Democracy promises accountability via elections; bureaucracy promises coordination via hierarchy. Many scholars believe these properties conflict. We prove, however, that accountability is precisely what unifies democracy and meritocratic (Weberian) bureaucracy. Central to the concept of meritocracy are performance reviews. We prove that a review system where all individuals and groups are accountable must also be democratic. Thus, meritocratic h…
The Evolution of Norms
Social norms that induce us to reward or punish people not for what they did to us but for what they did to other members of one’s group have long been thought as sine qua non sociological and thus impossible to explain in terms of rational choice. This article shows how social norms can be deductively derived from principles of (boundedly) rational choice as mechanisms that are necessary to stabilize behaviors in a large class of evolutionary ga…
The “revival of communism” or the effect of institutions
The Evolutionary Stability of Cooperation
Is cooperation without central authority stable? If so, how robust is it? Despite what might be the conventional wisdom,The Evolution of Cooperationdid not solve this problem deductively. In fact, results obtained later by others seem to have contradicted the book's main message. Reexamining this exceptionally influential work yields a new picture. Part of Axelrod's evolutionary story turns out to be false. But the main intuition, that retaliator…
Cooperation Under Uncertainty
Choosing the Best Social Order
There are many standard rules of aggregating individual preferences; majority rule is but one example. These rules determine what we typically consider to be a fair or a just solution to the problem of social choice. Yet we know very little, either about how these solutions relate to what a person, not a rule, would choose as a fair outcome or about what ethical or political beliefs would guide people in their choices. An empirical study was cond…
What Games? Why Equilibria? Which Equilibria
This article focuses on selected claims made by three authors about game theory: "What games?" (Aaron Wildavsky), "Why equilibria?" (Gordon Tullock), and "Which equilibria?" (Michael Hechter). The intention is to bring some balance to the debate by pointing to the fact that most of the arguments discussed are conditional; they are true under some assumptions but false under others. The power of game theory stems from the fact that it enables us t…
Comment on Macy
Death in the Forest. The Story of the Katyn Forest Massacre
Decision Synthesis
The Evolution of Norms
Social norms that induce us to reward or punish people not for what they did to us but for what they did to other members of one’s group have long been thought as sine qua non sociological and thus impossible to explain in terms of rational choice. This article shows how social norms can be deductively derived from principles of (boundedly) rational choice as mechanisms that are necessary to stabilize behaviors in a large class of evolutionary ga…
The Evolutionary Stability of Cooperation
Is cooperation without central authority stable? If so, how robust is it? Despite what might be the conventional wisdom,The Evolution of Cooperationdid not solve this problem deductively. In fact, results obtained later by others seem to have contradicted the book's main message. Reexamining this exceptionally influential work yields a new picture. Part of Axelrod's evolutionary story turns out to be false. But the main intuition, that retaliator…
Cooperation Under Uncertainty
Choosing the Best Social Order
There are many standard rules of aggregating individual preferences; majority rule is but one example. These rules determine what we typically consider to be a fair or a just solution to the problem of social choice. Yet we know very little, either about how these solutions relate to what a person, not a rule, would choose as a fair outcome or about what ethical or political beliefs would guide people in their choices. An empirical study was cond…
On Accountability and Hierarchy
Democracy promises accountability via elections; bureaucracy promises coordination via hierarchy. Many scholars believe these properties conflict. We prove, however, that accountability is precisely what unifies democracy and meritocratic (Weberian) bureaucracy. Central to the concept of meritocracy are performance reviews. We prove that a review system where all individuals and groups are accountable must also be democratic. Thus, meritocratic h…
The “revival of communism” or the effect of institutions
Death in the Forest. The Story of the Katyn Forest Massacre
Decision Synthesis
Comment on Macy
What Games? Why Equilibria? Which Equilibria
This article focuses on selected claims made by three authors about game theory: "What games?" (Aaron Wildavsky), "Why equilibria?" (Gordon Tullock), and "Which equilibria?" (Michael Hechter). The intention is to bring some balance to the debate by pointing to the fact that most of the arguments discussed are conditional; they are true under some assumptions but false under others. The power of game theory stems from the fact that it enables us t…
Choosing the Best Social Order
There are many standard rules of aggregating individual preferences; majority rule is but one example. These rules determine what we typically consider to be a fair or a just solution to the problem of social choice. Yet we know very little, either about how these solutions relate to what a person, not a rule, would choose as a fair outcome or about what ethical or political beliefs would guide people in their choices. An empirical study was cond…
Cooperation Under Uncertainty
The Evolutionary Stability of Cooperation
Is cooperation without central authority stable? If so, how robust is it? Despite what might be the conventional wisdom,The Evolution of Cooperationdid not solve this problem deductively. In fact, results obtained later by others seem to have contradicted the book's main message. Reexamining this exceptionally influential work yields a new picture. Part of Axelrod's evolutionary story turns out to be false. But the main intuition, that retaliator…
The “revival of communism” or the effect of institutions
The Evolution of Norms
Social norms that induce us to reward or punish people not for what they did to us but for what they did to other members of one’s group have long been thought as sine qua non sociological and thus impossible to explain in terms of rational choice. This article shows how social norms can be deductively derived from principles of (boundedly) rational choice as mechanisms that are necessary to stabilize behaviors in a large class of evolutionary ga…
On Accountability and Hierarchy
Democracy promises accountability via elections; bureaucracy promises coordination via hierarchy. Many scholars believe these properties conflict. We prove, however, that accountability is precisely what unifies democracy and meritocratic (Weberian) bureaucracy. Central to the concept of meritocracy are performance reviews. We prove that a review system where all individuals and groups are accountable must also be democratic. Thus, meritocratic h…
Economics (6 works) · Experimental Behavioral Economics Studies (5 works) · Political science (5 works) · Computer Science (4 works) · Game Theory and Applications (4 works) · Law (4 works) · Mathematical economics (4 works) · Psychology (4 works) · Sociology (4 works) · Epistemology (3 works)