ABSTRACT
This chapter explains a relatively informal fashion the existing theory of coalition formation which is most directly applicable to political interactions and international relations. N-person game theory rests squarely upon the assumption of rationality, and it offers a large corpus of material that relates to coalitions and coalition formation. In general, Riker's theory is a rich and suggestive source of ideas, though it only deals explicitly with a subset of the principal questions analysts often ask about coalition formation. Riker places heavy emphasis on the concept of winning in his analysis of coalition formation. He argues that winning is a central feature of the role premise of political man. The theory of political coalitions Riker builds on this foundation rests on a careful examination of characteristic functions for n-person, zero-sum games. A characteristic function is a collection of numerical utilities specifying the payoff that will be received by every possible coalition which can form within a given set of players.
