Trust and cooperation in buyer–seller relationships and networks. The co-evolution of structural balance and trust in iterated PD games

Our study has two aims: to elaborate theoretical frameworks and introduce social mechanisms of spontaneous co-operation in repeated buyer-seller relationships and to formulate hypotheses which can be empirically tested. The basis of our chain of ideas is the simple two-person Prisoner’s Dilemma game. On the one hand, its repeated variation can be applicable for the distinction of the analytical types of trust (iteration trust, strategy trust) in co-operations. On the other hand, it provides a chance to reveal those dyadic sympathy-antipathy relations, which make us understand the evolution of trust. Then we introduce the analysis of the more complicated (more than two-person) buyer-seller relationship. Firstly, we outline the possible role of the structural balancing mechanisms in forming trust in three-person buyer-seller relationships. Secondly, we put forward hypotheses to explain complex buyer-seller networks. In our research project we try to theoretically combine some of the simple concepts of game theory with certain ideas of the social-structural balance theory. Finally, it is followed by a short summary.

The Hungarian Revolution of 1956 at Sixty Years, Liberal Reform, and the Search for a Useable Past

The story of the 1956 Hungarian Revolution at sixty years remains contested. The current center-right government led by Prime Minister Viktor Orbán at once embraces the Revolution and yet at the same time trumpets the failure of the liberal states of the West. Hungarians are encouraged to view the authoritarian politics of Vladmir Putin as a successful model worthy of emulation. In this light the liberal state envisioned by many of the revolutionaries, let alone the liberal state expected by the European Union stands in contrast with one of the principal tenets of the ruling FIDESz/Christian Democrat (KDNP) coalition. At the same time, the current yearning for an illiberal state accords with a strand of desire more akin to those who supported Cardinal Mindszenty during the Revolution and by extension his sympathy for the authoritarian regime of Miklós Horthy.