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Crisis gaming—the Aberystwyth experience*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 October 2009

John Baylis
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Extract

During the last ten years the Department of International Politics at the University College of Wales, Aberystwyth, has been using the technique of crisis gaming as a supplementary part of its undergraduate programme. After being the first university in Britain to introduce crisis gaming as a teaching technique in 1966, the Department's initiative has been fairly widely followed at other British universities and polytechnics, most notably by Edinburgh with the GONEX series of games in 1967, Dr. Michael Nicholson's games at Lancaster1 and more recently by the University of London.

Type
Research Article
Information
Review of International Studies , Volume 4 , Issue 3 , October 1978 , pp. 233 - 243
Copyright
Copyright © British International Studies Association 1978

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References

page 233 note 1 Van der Eyken, W., ‘How I saved Europe’, The Financial Times, 19 April 1967.Google Scholar

page 233 note 2 See Griffin, S. F., The Crisis Game (New York, 1965)Google Scholar and Wilson, A., War Gaming (London, 1970).Google Scholar

page 234 note 1 Goldhamer, H. and Speier, H., ‘Some Observations on Political Gaming’ World Politics, xii (1959), pp 71–83.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

page 234 note 2 See ‘Political Gaming in the Classroom’, The Journal of Politics, 24 (1962), pp. 367–81.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

page 234 note 3 J. G. Garnett was on secondment to the NDG as Director of Strategic Studies for the year 1971–2. The games held in March 1972 consisted of three simultaneous games directed by Garnett and other members of the Department at Aberystwyth, including the author. The author owes a great debt to John Garnett for information about the early days of gaming at Aberystwyth. Some of what follows is based on an article published by John Garnett in the Time Educational Supplement, 7 January 1966.

page 235 note 1 Bloomfield, L. P. and Whaley, B., ‘The Political-Military exercise; a progress report’, Orbis, 8 (1965), pp. 854–870.Google Scholar

page 236 note 1 This 16 mm. film is the product of work done by the Audio-Visual Aids and Programmed Learning Unit at Liverpool University, together with the Education Branch of Western Command and the International Politics Department at Aberystwyth.

page 237 note 1 The Gontrol team usually find themselves under pressure from a particular participant to rule on the assassination of an opponent in the game!

page 237 note 2 University students notoriously ignore the complex logistic problems in the deployment of ‘their’ military forces. Also, in allowing students to make ‘mistakes’, there is of course a danger of the game becoming too unrealistic. The ‘Gods’ have to watch this problem particularly carefully.

page 238 note 1 For a discussion of the Use of CGTV in a similar context see Masson, C. R., ‘The Use of Television in an International Crisis Simulation’. University Vision, vii (1971), pp. 6–16.Google Scholar

page 238 note 2 In the ‘Panicorama’ programmes, a member of the Control team acts as a budding Robin Day (even sporting a bow tie!) and interviews a number of heads of state, defence or political correspondents of national newspapers, professors of political science, or anyone in fact who might be considered to have views on the developing crisis.

page 238 note 3 Care is taken to keep the exact timing of this session uncertain so that the teams do not consciously attempt to arrive at clear solutions to their problems by the end of the game. It is emphasised that they should consider the crisis to be a continuing one – the purpose of the final session being to take stock merely of the situation at that time.

page 238 note 4 See Guetskow, H.et al., The Simulation of International Relations (New Jersey, 1963).Google Scholar

page 238 note 5 Naylor, T. H.et al., Computer Simulation Techniques (New York, 1966).Google Scholar

page 239 note 1 Wilson, op. cit. p. 146.

page 239 note 2 Benson, O., A Simple diplomatic game: or putting one and one together (mimeo, Norman, University of Oklahoma, 1959).Google Scholar

page 239 note 3 See Banks, M. H., Groom, A. J. R., Oppenheim, A. M., ‘Gaming Simulation and the Study of International Relations in British Universities’, in Armstrong, R. and Taylor, J. L., (ed.), Instructional Simulation Systems in Higher Education (Cambridge Monograph on Teaching Methods, No. 2, Cambridge Institute of Education, 1970), p. 41.Google Scholar

page 239 note 4 Ibid. p. 36.

page 239 note 5 Ibid.

page 239 note 6 Ibid.

page 240 note 1 Alger, G. F., The Use of Behavioural Science Techniques in the Study of International Organiza tions (Geneva, 1966).Google Scholar

page 240 note 2 Op. cit. p. 37.

page 240 note 3 Barringer, R. E. and Whaley, D., ‘The M.I.T. Political-Military Gaming Experience’, Orbis, ix (1965), p. 449.Google Scholar

page 240 note 4 Ibid. p. 446

page 240 note 5 H. Goldhamer and H. Speier, op. cit.

page 241 note 1 Bloomfield, L. P., ‘Three Experiments in Political Gaming’, American Political Science Review, 53 (1959).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

page 241 note 2 Ibid.

page 241 note 3 Barringer and Whaley, op. cit. p. 457

page 242 note 1 Wilson, op, cit. p. 75

page 243 note 1 Ibid. p. 76

page 243 note 2 Barringer and Whalley, op. cit. p. 456.

page 243 note 3 Following his experiences with crisis gaming at Aberystwyth, Michael Clarke, a Lecturer in the Department of Government at Manchester University, is at present writing a book on crisis gaming (to be published by Groom Helm).