Nobelpriset till evolutionär statsvetenskap!

Fast inte just i år då. Men några gånger har det hänt. Låt mig nämnda dem jag känner till:

Elinor Ostrom, ekonomipriset 2009

Ostrom är evolutionär statsvetenskapskvinna. Just det evolutionära draget hos henne, och öppenheten mot den moderna biologin och naturvetenskapen, märks i många av hennes texter. Mest känd är ju hennes Governing the Commons: The Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action.  Redan i titeln återfinns ju den engelska termen Evolution, men det kan i många fall innebära ”framväxt” snarare än evolution enligt Darwins lag (se definitionen i Samhällets rörelselag). I det här fallet är det tvetydigt. Ostrom är medveten om evolutionsbegreppets innebörd inom biologin. Det vittnar flera titlar i bokens bibliografi om:

Alexander. P. 1979. Evolution and Culture. In Evolutionary Biology and Human
Social Behavior. An Anthropological Perspective, eds. N. A. Chagnon and W. Irons. pp. 59-78. Nonh Scituate, Mass.: Duxbury Press.

Axelrod, R. 1984. The Evoluton of Cooperation. New York: Basic Books.

Axelrod, R. 1986. Modeling the Evolution of Norms. American Political Science
Review 80: 1095-1 1 1

Axelrod, R., and D. Dian. 1988. The Further Evolution of Cooperation. Science
242:1385-90.

Dawkins, R. 1 976. The Selfish Gene. Oxford University Press.

Durham, W. H. 1 979. Toward a Coevolutionary Theory of Human Biology and
Culture. In Evolutionary Biology and Human Social Behavior. An Anthropological
Perspective, eds. N. A. Chagnon and W. Irons, pp. 39-58. North Scituate,
Mass. : Duxbury Press.

Irons, W. 1 979. Natural Selection, Adaptation, and Human Social Behavior. In
Evolutionary Biology and Human Social Behavior. An Anthropological Perspective,
eds. N. A. Chagnon and W. Irons, pp. 4-39. North Scituate, Mass. : Duxbury
Press.

Nelson, R., and S. Winter. 1 982. An Evolutionary Theory of &onomic Change.
Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.

Opp, K. D. 1 982. The Evolutionary Emergence of Norms. British Journal of Social
Psychology 21:139-49.

Opp, K. D. 1 986. The Evolution of a Prisoner’s Dilemma in the Market. In
Paradoxical Effects of Social Behavior, eds. A. Diekmann and P. Mitter, pp.
149-68. Vienna: Physica-Verlag.

Witt, U. 1 986. Evolution and Stability of Cooperation Without Enforceable Contracts.
Kyklos 39:245-66.

Hon var en intressant forskare verkligen (hon dog 2012 tyvärr). När hon föreläste på  Göteborgs universitet satt jag ofta och småfnissade åt att hon ofta tvärvetenskapligt lät sig inspireras av biologi inför samhällsforskarna. I boken förtydligar hon:

What I attempt to do in this volume is to combine the strategy used by many scholars associated with the ”new institutionalism” with the strategy used by biologists for conducting empirical work related to the development of a better theoretical understanding of the biological world.

Kunde inte bett om bättre stöd för min huvudtes i Samhällets rörelselag. I en artikel om beslutsteori skriver Ostrom:

Evolutionary psychologists have produced substantial evidence that human beings have evolved the capacity-similar to that of learning a language-to learn reciprocity norms and general social rules that enhance returns from collective action (Cosmides and Tooby 1992).

[…]

Our evolutionary heritage has hardwired us to be boundedly self-seeking at the same time that we are capable of learning heuristics and norms, such as reciprocity, that help achieve successful collective action.

[…]

Models of human behavior based on theories consistent with our evolutionary and adaptive heritage need to join the ranks of theoretical tools used in the social and biological sciences.

[…] sufficient work by cognitive scientists, evolutionary theorists, game theorists, and social scientists in all disciplines (Axelrod 1984; Boyd and Richerson 1988, 1992; Cook and Levi 1990; Guth and Kliemt 1995; Sethi and Somanathan 1996; Simon 1985, 1997) on the use of heuristics and norms of behavior, such as reciprocity, has already been undertaken. It is now possible to continue this development toward a firmer behavioral foundation for the study of collective action to overcome social dilemmas.

[…]

The evolutionary approach has been strongly influenced by the work of Robert Axelrod (see, in particular, Axelrod 1984, 1986; Axelrod and Hamilton 1981; and Axelrod and Keohane 1985).

I det näst sista citatet nämner Ostrom en annan pristagare till Alfred Nobels minne, nämligen Herbert Simon (1916-2001), pristagare 1978:

Simon, Herbert A. 1985. ”Human Nature in Politics: The Dialogue of Psychology with Political Science.” American Political Science Review 79(June):293-304.
Simon, Herbert A. 1997. Models of Bounded Rationality: Empirically
Grounded Economic Reason. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Det finns andra texter av Herbert Simon av evolutionär karaktär, såsom Altruism and Economics (2001).

En tredje nobelpristagare, Thomas Schelling, skulle kunna anses höra till den evolutionära statsvetenskapen. I Kungl. Vetenskapsakademiens motivering anges att:

Gradual cooperation occurs not only among humans. The biologist John Maynard
Smith describes the mating behavior of the black hamlet, a hermaphrodite coral reef
fish which carries both sperm and eggs simultaneously (Maynard Smith, 1982, pages
159-160). When the fish mates, it engages in several rounds of “egg trading” where it
alternately lays eggs and fertilizes the eggs of its partner. The proposed explanation
is that it is cheaper to produce sperm than eggs, so if all eggs were being laid at
once, the fish playing the male role in this first round might not produce any eggs
thereafter, preferring instead to play the male role again with another fish willing
to produce eggs. By saving some eggs to be used as a reward for the other fish’s
eggs, each fish lowers the partner’s incentive to defect. This is but one example from
evolutionary biology where Schelling’s analysis has relevance.

Thomas Schelling (1921-2016) blev pristagare 2005.

Så den evolutionära ansatsen inom de vetenskapliga politikstudierna är representerad på högsta nobelprisnivå. Men just i år var det kanske inte riktigt så.