What do the Great Fire of London, the rise of Adolf Hitler, and the attacks of September 11 2001 have in common? Though their occurrence spanned hundreds of years and different continents, they were all predicted well in advance, and by a single man. Michel de Nostradame, a.k.a. Nostradamus, the 16th century seer who used the stars to map out the course of history, has been credited with predicting these and a host of other key events throughout human history. Well over four hundred years later, and another ‘predictioneer’ has apparently graced the global stage, though this time substituting astrology for a complex computer algorithm to forecast the future.

Dubbed the ‘Next Nostradamus’, Professor Bruce Bueno de Mesquita from New York University has been making political forecasts for decades, and been credited with correctly foreseeing who would succeed Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini after his death, in addition to a host of other election outcomes across the world. Now, Bueno de Mesquita runs a private consulting firm, in which everyone from the C.I.A. to corporate leaders enlist his help to predict, and more importantly, shape the future. And so it goes, The Predictioneer: One Who Uses Maths, Science and the Logic of Brazen Self-Interest to See and Shape the Future sets the professor’s stall, outlining his belief that game theory (essentially maths for how people behave strategically) can be used to predict and alter complex negotiations, most of which often involve a significant degree of coercion.

Everything from Iran’s ability to acquire a nuclear bomb, to the likelihood of achieving peace in the Middle East can be predicted using game theory according to Bueno de Mesquita. Indeed, in order to make an accurate prediction, the professor claims all one needs to know is the key actors, what they want (their desired outcomes), how important the issue is to each player (the salience), and how much influence each player has in potentially altering the eventual outcome.

Of course, there is one caveat. Given the multitude of possible interactions in a complex negotiation or pressing issue of international importance, it is impossible to keep track of all of this information in one’s head. In comes Bueno de Mesquita’s proprietary computer algorithm to crunch the numbers for us (not surprisingly, the actual calculations which he uses are not provided to the public), thereby minimising the potential for human error in the process. To be sure, The Predictioneer makes clear that this method of forecasting the future in no way makes individual analysts obsolete, but rather crucially relies on their expert knowledge to help assign numerical values to the aforementioned criteria needed to make an accurate prediction.

This is not to say that Bueno de Mesquita does not have his critics, with noted international relations scholars such as John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt (among many others) having previously attacked his mathematical approach to the discipline of political science. Given that everything the professor and his new book stand for, namely that human agency is what shapes outcomes, and not long-term trends in geopolitics as the above scholars may believe, such criticism is hardly surprising. Moreover, if you fail to accept the basic underlying premise (which many people don’t) that people act rationally, and are able to clearly articulate their preferences among a host of available choices, The Predictioneer is probably not for you.

That said, given the 90% accuracy rate with which the professor’s proprietary computer model apparently is able to predict outcomes, it would be hard not to get converted. For all of the criticism which Bueno de Mesquita has endured over the years, particularly those focusing on the underlying assumptions under which his entire discipline rests, it is hard to argue with such results. While the final chapter on how we could have predicted the declining power of the Catholic Church, or what we should expect out of global climate change negotiations seems to have been tacked-on to an otherwise highly enjoyable read, the previous ten chapters are a sufficiently solid foundation from which to launch a more robust investigation into the world of
game theory.