Reconsidering Conflict and Cooperation

An analysis of several important aspects of competition or conflict in games, social choice and decision theory is presented. Inherent difficulties and complexities in cooperation are highlighted. These have over the years led to a certain marginalization of studies related to cooperation. The significant richness of cooperation possibilities and the considerable gains which my lie there hidden are indicated. Based on that, a reconsideration of cooperation is suggested, as a more evolved form of rational behaviour. As one of the motivations it is shown that the paradigmatic non-cooperative Nash equilibrium itself rests on a strong cooperation assumption in the case of $n \geq 3$ players.