Hostage-Crisis Simulation : Learning Objectives , Simulation Goals , and Evaluation

Wepresent two simulations designed to convey the strategic nature of terrorism and counterterrorism. The first is a simulated hostage crisis, designed primarily to illustrate the concepts of credible commitment and costly signaling.The second explores highlevel decision making of both a terrorist group and the state, and is designed to highlight scarce-resource allocation and organizational dynamics. The simulations should be useful both in a traditional classroom setting as well as to the larger public.We provide a primer on the subject matter, and all the material necessary to run the simulations. Withever-growing interest in the topic of terrorismhas comea concomitant student interest in terrorism as an academic subject. This is a development that we, as educators, should welcome, both for its own sake and as a prescription against facile policy responses to terrorist activity from all political angles. Yet this development presents particular pedagogical problems for those conducting courses in terrorism: students typically come to class with strong views on the subject, colored bymedia attention that rarely if ever addresses the topic in a balanced manner. Further complicating matters is the disconnect between public discussions of terrorism, focusing on the apparent perpetrators, death tolls, and the “strength” of state responses, and the academic literature, which in recent years has addressed the role of such complex concepts as credible commitment, costly signaling, and agency problems. Students expecting atheoretical descriptions of attacks and outcomes are not only likely to be disappointed by an abstract discussion of the commitment problem; they are also likely to experience diminished learning outcomes. We believe one solution to this unfortunate response is the in-class simulation, in which students take on the roles of terrorist group members, state officials, members of the media, and the public at large. Placed at the beginning of a class unit, these simulations can provide an accessiblemotivation for themore abstract material to follow. Placed as a coda to conceptual material, they can provide reinforcement and an illustration of how said material affects real-world decision making and outcomes. Both of these roles become particularly important when discussing strategic concepts, often based on game-theoretic reasoning.1 Most political science undergraduate majors will not have had prior training in game theory, and many instructors will not want to take the class time to provide this training, resulting in either student confusion about concepts, or the absence of these concepts from the curriculum. In-class simulations elide this problem by introducing students to the practical application of strategic notions in precisely the context in which they arise in the real world, giving students a referent when discussing strategic theories in the abstract.2 Beyond these positive attributes, classroom simulations can also increase student learning and interest in core concepts of international relations. Using student evaluations, Shellman and Turan (2006) find that a simulation increased student interest in topics in international relations. In addition, a vast majority of participants reported that participating in a simulation enhanced their understanding of international relations. Using control and treatment groups, Powner and Allendoerfer (2008) find that active learning (i.e., either discussion or simulation) improved student performance on assessments.3 Inwhatfollows,wepresenttwoin-classsimulationsthatwehope will be useful to instructors of terrorism courses.The first is a simulated hostage crisis, designed primarily to convey the concepts of credible commitmentandcostly signaling.Studentsarebrokenup into groups corresponding to a band of terrorists, governmental leadership for two different states, two ormoremedia groups, and thepublicof thestatewhosenationalshavebeenkidnapped.Within each group are roles that are further specified, making this simulation effective for even large (50-plus person) classes. The second simulation examines high-level decision making of both a terrorist group and the state. The former seeks to David A. Siegel is an assistant professor of political science at Florida State University. His research focuses on collective action, electoral dynamics, and terrorismandpolitical violence. He can be reached at dsiegel@fsu.edu. Joseph K.Young is an assistant professor at Southern Illinois University. His research explores the interaction between states and dissidents andhow this interaction leads to different forms of political violence such as terrorism, civil war, and state repression. He can be reached at jkyoung@siu.edu. The Teache r . doi:10.1017/S1049096509990151 PS • October 2009 765 accomplish successful attacks, while the latter looks to prevent the same. Each group is able to specify strategic decisions such as the modes of attack or counterterrorism and the distribution of resources assigned to different aspects like propaganda or intelligence. The conceptual focus here is on agency problems, organizational inefficiencies, and game theory more generally. As there are only two groups this simulation works best with smaller (20–30 person) sections, but a larger class can easily be accommodated by breaking it up into subgroups of this size, with several simulations occurring simultaneously. For both simulations we open by presenting a brief sketch of the conceptual material being tested, follow with a description of the setup and progression of each simulation, and conclude with suggestions of topics for debriefing and of extensions of the simulation. An online appendix, available on each author’sWeb site, contains the text of all documents to be provided to the class.4 HOSTAGE-CRISIS SIMULATION