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Leadership and Credibility in N-Person Coordination Games

Division of Social, Behaviorial, and Economic Research, National Science Foundation and Rice University

Carl M. Rhodes

Department of Political Science, Rice University

It is often assumed that leaders serve as focal points around which followers rally when confronted with a coordination problem. This research begins with one component of leadership—its coordinating role—and disentangles how leadership matters for followers. This analysis proceeds as a simple one-sided signaling game from leaders to followers and investigates when a leader's signals are credible. The empirical analysis is based on a series of laboratory experiments in which groups of four actors were involved in a series of one-stage coordination games. The findings show that although leadership is crucial for coordinating followers, it is not a panacea. The introduction of uncertainty about the type of leader markedly decreases the ameliorating impact of leadership.

Journal of Conflict Resolution, Vol. 41, No. 6, 767-791 (1997)
DOI: 10.1177/0022002797041006003


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