The Epistemological Role of Fables in Formal Models about Power

Abstract Political science prioritizes mechanisms, yet static formal models fail to capture their dynamic evolution. Roger Myerson’s fables address this gap by isolating recursive processes—trust formation, credibility decay, and institutional adaptation—and embedding them in dynamic models. I extend Myerson’s approach by contrasting his recursive logic with static frameworks, such as Milan Svolik’s coup model, and introduce the Napoleon Paradox to show how institutional constraints evolve into stabilizing mechanisms through path-dependent trust. Fables act as a mechanism that reveals heuristics and bridges theoretical insight into empirically grounded modeling and simulation.