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4.3
Project Design and Stakeholder Cooperation
The idea of the LEADER process is to link stakeholders and activities to initiate co-
operation among those involved, so that they will generate new ideas resulting in
projects, evaluate their own agendas, and draw their own conclusions from that, re-
sulting in what could be termed a learning cycle (fig. 4).
Fig. 4.
Learning cycle concerning agent cooperation
Unlike the previous, this simulation process is not a replication of past events, but
rather an idealized sketch of possible future developments. Some of the elements of
the learning cycle have been supported by empirical evidence, such as the project
discussions and decisions (fig. 3) or the development goals of the stakeholders that
form the basis for cooperation (fig. 2).
Although numerous simulations of negotiating processes between agents exist, the
social science research about the design of such models is in an early state [9]. In
many cases, such simulations start with a number of assumptions that are successively
brought in line with empirical evidence. One of the challenges in this process results
from the finding that some of the influences on negotiation processes such as emo-
tions, personal affection, social control, and norms are harder to connect to simulation
rules than overt behavior. This led to a similar strategy in this case: using a few plaus-
ible assumptions, the feasibility of simulating this learning cycle is shown, and subse-
quently opportunities for empirically inspired improvements are identified.
Since a distinct assignment of development goals to specific stakeholders or groups
of stakeholders was not empirically evident, each agent received a random sample of
one third of the available goals (fig. 2). Also, the extent to which stakeholders will
have to agree on these goals to trigger cooperation could not be identified empirically.
Again, this is replaced by a plausible rationale: Agents agreeing in none of the devel-
opment goals will not cooperate. Since interview statements about development goals
