Achieving widespread cooperation while addressing global issues is one of the most severe problems in today’s society. Once such a state has been reached it is usually stable, since global strategies maximise the expected average benefit for all the members of the system. In this paper we argue how allowing playing agents to exert only local punishment, this is, punish those defectors which are in direct contact with them, can trigger a cascade of collaboration leading to global cooperation. We conclude by analysing how the international community could use such approaches to take on global challenges such as climate change, public resources, investments and governmental corruption.
This is a further development over this paper, published by Samuel Johnson from the University of Birmingham, UK. This short paper adds topology to Johnson's model and explores the effects of the variations in the community (grouping) distribution in said topology, finding out that a more connected world makes widespread defection more difficult.
Keywords: Cooperation, Social Dilemma, GameTheory