Wikistrat Competition

I received an email this afternoon from Wikistrat inviting political scientist graduate students to participate in a competition for $10,000.  Before this email, I have heard nothing about this program/website and I am still relatively ignorant about their presence and history, but it seems, at the very least, worth getting a bit more information about.

The actual competition is for a team of 5-10 political science graduate students from the same university to:

1. Forecast their team’s national trajectory;
2. Develop scenario pathways and national policy options for specific strategic issues;
3. Articulate national grand strategies;
4. Brainstorm future regional security environments (alternate futures); and
5. Simulate plausible scenarios of geopolitical crises.

 

The simulation, to occur in June, will last 4 weeks with an expectation of 5,000 words per week of output by the university team.  Each team will be role-playing a particular country and developing plans of action for the country they are representing.

The competition is intriguing.  For a relatively new enterprise, it seems like a decent way to generate content and information for a starting investment — perhaps similar to other prize competitions for science based projects (rocket design, fuel efficiency, etc.), but this one is strategy oriented.  

About Michael A. Allen

Michael is an Assistant Professor in Political Science at Boise State University with a focus in International Relations, Comparative Politics, and Methodology (quantitative and formal). His work includes issues related to military basing abroad, asymmetric relations, cooperation, and conflict. He received his Ph.D from Binghamton University in 2011.

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