Using Hypergames to Model Difficult Social Issues: An Approach to the Case of Soccer Hooliganism

Abstract

It is often argued that the O.R. scientist should have something to contribute toward the analysis not only of well-defined technical problems, but also of those where complex, “messy” social issues predominate.^1,2 Soccer hooliganism in the U.K. is one well-known example of this type of problem: it would be disappointing if the sort of systematic analysis O.R. claims to be able to provide could not throw at least some light on it. A model is given here allowing some conclusions to be derived from clearly-specified hypotheses, using the recently developed hyper-game approach.^3,4 This involves attempting to represent the “perceptual games” that the different parties may see themselves to be playing, and then bringing these together. Predictions may then be made by examining the likely results of actions taken by each party from its own standpoint and then interpreted by the others in the context of their own—perhaps radically different—games. This last factor gives this case a particular sort of complexity. Previous hypergame studies have dealt with decisions taken in the context of warfare⁵ or business competition.^6,7 With some exceptions, the parties in such cases tend to inhabit perceptual worlds that are roughly similar, and so agree to some extent as to what the conflict is about. The civil administrator, policeman, magistrate or respectable reporter (or law-abiding O.R. scientist) has very little in common with the football hooligan, and the natural temptation is simply to dismiss such behaviour as “mindless violence” which defies rational explanation.