George W. Downs

First scholar to use non-cooperative game theory to model the effects of domestic uncertainty on international negotiations and to identify how to use tacit bargaining-actions rather than words-to resolve disputes and arms races without coercion. Also first to analyze formally the systematic ways in which international organizations and treaties fail to meet expectations or alter behavior while producing high - but shallow - compliance with treaty terms, a process he and coauthors called compliance as easy music. Pioneering game theoretic work named the resurrection hypothesis provided the definitive explanation for why leaders facing virtually certain defeat nevertheless continue to fight. Provides the foundation for identifying policy solutions to intense international conflicts by avoiding the demonization of adversaries and by leaving room for post-war political survival for the vanquished. Leader in the design of models to achieve practical success and advances in environmental negotiations and in the spread of human rights. Showed how formal models can be used to extract practical solutions to fundamental problems in the development and peace research arenas.