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This book examines the correspondence between international relations (IR) theories of structural realism and constructivism and paintings, notably the artwork of Mark Rothko and Jackson Pollock, in a game theory setting. This interdisciplinary approach, through the lens of game theory and semiotics, permits different, enriched interpretations of structural realism and constructivism. These theories constitute an axis of debate between social and systemic approaches to international politics, as well as an axis of differentiation between scientific realism and positivism as philosophies of science. As such, the interpretations explored in this book contribute to what we know about international relations, how semiotics intersect with strategic uncertainty, and explains these interactions in the proposed games model.The book's use of game theory and semiotics generate ‘visual semiotic games'(VSGs) that shed light on the debate axes through strategic uncertainty, interactions,and players'interactive belief systems. VSGs will contribute to literature on experimental semiotics in the sense of players'coordination behavior, beliefs, and artistic evaluations. The equilibria, interpreted through branches of philosophy of mind and theories of explanation, will reveal possibilities of agreement among players about which artwork representing the theory at hand is the best, opening innovative research perspectives for the discipline of IR theory.

For over half a century, European Union has been a promising endeavor of cooperative institutionalism. It has shown that even nation states with a long history of conflict are capable of collaborating with one another to serve their own interests. However, the EU project has also made visible that there is no one-size-fits-all policy in economics that can be applied to all countries with success. Economics starts and ends with the society. Common culture determines the outcomes of economic policies, and ordinary people pick up the bill when policies turn out to be failures.This book presents two different tales of the European Union to provide an empirical challenge to oversimplified assumptions behind the neoliberal orthodoxy in policymaking: Favorable experience of the EU-candidate Turkey, and the regrettable venture of the EU-member Greece. The fact that these two neighboring countries with similar cultures have had vastly different experiences with the European Union suggests that the EU functions as a catalyst of change in the countries that associate with it, but this impact could be negative as well as positive depending on the role the EU plays. Political economist Bülent Temel presents a lucid analysis of the Turkish and Greek encounters with the EU—based on contributions from a diverse range of social sciences; economics, game theory, finance, political science and sociology.

In this book, leading experts in international negotiations present formal models of conflict resolution and international negotiations. Besides the description of different models and approaches, the book answers three questions: How can the abstract concepts and results of rational choice theorists be made more understandable and plausible to political and social scientists not trained to work with formal models? What can be done to encourage practitioners to use not only simple but also mathematically advanced approaches in their analysis of real world negotiation problems? How can practitioners (e.g., politicians and diplomats) become interested in, take into account, and apply formal models of their more important problems?