Journal of Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis, Vol. 3, 183-184 (1994)

Book Review

INTERACTIVE DECISION MAKING, Fang, L., Hipel, K. W. and Kilgour, D. M., New York: Wiley, 1993, xv+221 pp. + 1 diskette, f49.50.

Fang, Hipel and Kilgour present in this book the graph model for conflict analysis, a theory based upon ideas from both graph theory and game theory. They have developed the model over the last eight years to provide a new approach to the study and resolution of real-world disputes. Their main purpose in writing this book is to extend the field of conflict analysis and in doing so to satisfy an actual need from practitioners such as consultants and professional managers, because ‘surprisingly, this [ multiple-participant-multiple-objective decision making] is the category of OR for which there is great demand for the development of decision aids but where OR researchers have devoted the least effort’ (p. 28). Therefore they have implemented the method in a flexible decision support system (DSS) designed for modelling and analysing diverse (two- player as well as n-player conflicts) conflict situations. A version of this DSS called GMCR (Graph Model for Conflict Resolution) is provided on a diskette that is included with the book. Furthermore, Appendix A contains a tutorial for GMCR while Appendix B provides a GMCR manual.

The book contains extensive material on both the theory and practice of conflict resolution and ‘it should be of assistance to any professional who wishes to deal effectively with conflict. Because conflict arises in most fields, the book should be of interest to practitioners, students, teachers, and researchers working in a wide variety of areas’ (p. 30). One could reply that a book cannot be efficiently aimed at people with different backgrounds. However, the book is organized in such a way that some chapters are dedicated to the theoretical study of the graph model whereas others make use of the DSS to investigate case studies.

Thus, depending on where his or her interest lies, a reader may focus either on one kind of chapter or on some combination of the two.

After having proposed a general overview of the fields of decision-making techniques and game theory and of earlier developments in conflict analysis, Chapter 1 examines the ingredients needed to use the graph model (i.e. decision makers, options, course of action available to each decision maker and each decision maker’s preferences), outlines the general procedure for applying the method to an actual dispute and discusses the benefits it offers.

The next four chapters present the theory of the graph model in a very pedagogical fashion: the mathematical results are accompanied by plain language, well-chosen illustrative examples (game of chicken, possible superpower nuclear confrontation in Europe, etc.) to bring the results and their implications into focus for the general reader, while each chapter concludes with a set of problems which serve to clarify important points and ensure comprehension.

Chapter 2 gives the basic definitions of the graph model and compares them with the normal and option forms widely used for representing games and conflicts. Chapter 3 explains how to carry out a stability analysis within the graph model paradigm, i.e. the systematic study of potential moves and countermoves by decision makers during the evolution of the conflict and the determination of the most likely resolution. Because people may behave in different ways in a conflict situation, a variety of solution concepts for modelling specific types of sociological behaviour are considered. The specific solution concepts considered in the chapter are Nash stability, general metarationality, symmetric rnetarationality, sequential stability, Limited move stability, non-myopic stability and Stackelberg equilbrium. The connection between the graph model for conflict resolution and extensive games is examined in Chapter 4. Chapter 5 rigorously

0 1994 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

184 Book Review

explores, for both individual and group stability, the mathematical relationships among the solution concepts defined in Chapter 3. Finally, Chapter 8 presents a flexible graph model for preferences describing a wide variety of preference structures (allowing indifferences and intransitive preferences) and applies it to a labour-management negotiation.

Two fairly complex real-world conflicts are modelled and analysed in detail using the graph model in Chapters 6 and 7. The Garrison Diversion Unit, an environmental conflict between Canada and the United States, is examined at two points in time in Chapter 6. Chapter 7 applies the graph model to the softwood lumber dispute, an international trading conflict between the same two countries. These two examples present the general methodology for analysing real-world disputes and demonstrate the effectiveness of the graph model approach to conflict resolution. Moreover, they clearly illustrate the benefits that can be gained by using the graph model: the graph model proposes a systematic and

realistic structure to describe conflicts, it can handle any finite number of decision makers, each of whom controls any finite number of actions, it can describe irreversible as well as common moves and i t forms a solid framework upon which solution concepts for describing human behaviour can be defined, assessed and compared.

In summary, this book contains the latest research findings in conflict resolution and presents them in a very accessible way. Thus, it is a must-read for anyone interested in conflict modelling, analysis and resolution. I hope, like the authors, that it will stimulate further investigation in the field of multiple-participant-multiple-objective decision making.

ALAIN MOSMANS Universite Libre de Bruxelles

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