Are complex game models empirically relevant?

This essay on the empirical relevance of game theoretic models in International Relations is developed in three parts. First it reviews Allan and Dupont’s arguments for a tradeoff between model complexity and empirical robustness. Second, it re-conceptualizes model complexity and shifts the discussion of a tradeoff between between empirics and model complexity by considering the empirical relevance rather than the empirical robustness of a model. Finally it assesses the link between empirical relevance and complexity with reference to models in the crisis bargaining and the war and bargaining literatures