[via Smart Mobs] Nature features a paper by Elisabeth Woodwhiich could help peace settlements:
A political scientist at the Santa Fe Institute in New Mexico has devised a mathematical method that could help civil-war negotiators to find the most stable peace treaties1.
Elisabeth Wood calculates that a settlement will be stronger and more likely to last if it finds the ideal way to apportion the stakes. For example, if two warring factions each want control of some part of a disputed region, negotiators need to divide the territory in a way that comes closest to satisfying them both.
Perhaps, this could be applied to the India-Pakistan talks over Kashmir.
Atanu Dey had written sometime ago on this topic in an essay entitled “Dollar Auctions and Deadly Games.”
