Sociology and game theory: Contemporary and historical perspectives.

This article has as its main goal to contribute to a broad discussion of game theory and also to raise the question of whether it would be possible to develop a distinctly sociological version of game theory. By a broad discussion that is not limited to technical game theory but also includes games more generally and other approaches to analyzing reality in terms of games. By the expression a distinctly sociological version of game theory that is such that it will both draw on and renew the sociological tradition, just like economists have developed their own version of game theory and used it to improve economic analysis. This article is a companion piece to an earlier study in which the major works in game theory are analyzed from the perspective of sociology. In this second work, however, the focus has been shifted from game theory itself to the use that sociologists have made of game theory. Both studies are non-technical and built on the premise that game theory is of interest also to sociologists who are not trained in technical game theory. One can roughly distinguish between two periods in the use of game theory by sociologists. During the late l950's to the mid-l970's, a small number of sociologists became interested in game theory and started to use it and discuss it.