Rational Politics

Rational Politics: Decisions, Games, and Strategy focuses on the unified presentation of politics as a rational human activity, including the paradox of voting and proportional representation. The publication first offers information on the study of rational politics, political intrigue in the Bible, and candidate strategies. Topics include the factor of timing in presidential primaries, rational positions in a multicandidate race, primacy of issues and their spatial representation, and politics in the story of Esther. The text then elaborates on voting paradoxes and the problems of representation, voting power, and threats and deterrence. Discussions focus on a sequential view of the Cuban missile crisis, use of threat power in Poland, power anomalies in the European Community Council of Ministers, probability of the paradox of voting, empirical examples of the paradox of voting, and problems in achieving proportional representation. The book is a valuable reference for researchers interested in rational politics.

Within the realist school of international relations, a prevailing view holds that the anarchic structure of the international system invariably forces the great powers to seek security at one another's expense, dooming even peaceful nations to an unrelenting struggle for power and dominance. Rational Theory of International Politics offers a more nuanced alternative to this view, one that provides answers to the most fundamental and pressing questions of international relations. Why do states sometimes compete and wage war while at other times they cooperate and pursue peace? Does competition reflect pressures generated by the anarchic international system or rather states' own expansionist goals? Are the United States and China on a collision course to war, or is continued coexistence possible? Is peace in the Middle East even feasible? Charles Glaser puts forward a major new theory of international politics that identifies three kinds of variables that influence a state's strategy: the state's motives, specifically whether it is motivated by security concerns or "greed"; material variables, which determine its military capabilities; and information variables, most importantly what the state knows about its adversary's motives. Rational Theory of International Politics demonstrates that variation in motives can be key to the choice of strategy; that the international environment sometimes favors cooperation over competition; and that information variables can be as important as material variables in determining the strategy a state should choose.

This book presents the rational choice theories of collective action and social choice, applying them to problems of public policy and social justice. Joe Oppenheimer has crafted a basic survey of, and pedagogic guide to, the findings of public choice theory for political scientists. He describes the problems of collective action, institutional structures, regime change, and political leadership.

Those who study value conflicts have resisted rational choice approaches in the social sciences, contending that political conflict over cultural values is best explained by group loyalties, symbolic motives, and other "nonrational" factors. However, Chong shows that a single model can explain how people make decisions across both social and economic realms. He argues that our preferences result from a combination of psychological dispositions, which are shaped by social influences and developed over the life span. Chong's book yields insights about the circumstances under which preferences, beliefs, values, norms and group identifications are formed. It offers a provocative explanation of how ingrained social norms and values can change over time despite the forces maintaining the status quo. "Going beyond the tired polemics on both sides, [Chong] constructs a new interpretation of human behavior in which culture and individual rationality both matter. The synthesis is a more comprehensive and powerful explanatory framework than either side could have produced, and Chong's creativity should influence subsequent interpretations of our social life in fundamental ways."—Christopher H. Achen, University of Michigan

Prevailing economic theory presumes that agents act rationally when they make decisions, striving to maximize the efficient use of their resources. Psychology has repeatedly challenged the rational choice paradigm with persuasive evidence that people do not always make the optimal choice. Yet the paradigm has proven so successful a predictor that its use continues to flourish, fueled by debate across the social sciences over why it works so well. Intended to introduce novices to rational choice theory, this accessible, interdisciplinary book collects writings by leading researchers. The Limits of Rationality illuminates the rational choice paradigm of social and political behavior itself, identifies its limitations, clarifies the nature of current controversies, and offers suggestions for improving current models. In the first section of the book, contributors consider the theoretical foundations of rational choice. Models of rational choice play an important role in providing a standard of human action and the bases for constitutional design, but do they also succeed as explanatory models of behavior? Do empirical failures of these explanatory models constitute a telling condemnation of rational choice theory or do they open new avenues of investigation and theorizing? Emphasizing analyses of norms and institutions, the second and third sections of the book investigate areas in which rational choice theory might be extended in order to provide better models. The contributors evaluate the adequacy of analyses based on neoclassical economics, the potential contributions of game theory and cognitive science, and the consequences for the basic framework when unequal bargaining power and hierarchy are introduced.

Rational Choice Theory claims to be able to explain how all individuals make not just some of their choices, but all of their choices, all of the time. According to the theory, there is no difference in principle between choosing whether to buy apples rather than bananas or choosing whether to join a political revolution instead of staying at home and watching television. Given these claims to universal applicability, it is perhaps not surprising to find that over the last three or four decades Rational Choice Theory has become increasingly influential as a means of providing explanations in politics. The textbook introduces the premises of Rational Choice Theory and illustrates how this theory can be applied to political studies. The book concludes with an assessment of the usefulness of the model in the light of the problems highlighted. -"Parson's book provides a lucid presentation and a cogent critique of Rational Choice Theory in economics and politics." Professor Steve Pressman, Department of Economics and Finance, Monmouth University, USA

The first textbook to present a framework of the Behavioral Political Science paradigm for understanding political decision-making.

Although the study of politics dates to ancient Greece, the basic questions that interested those earliest political scientists still linger with us today: What are the origins of government? What should government do? What conditions foster effective governance? Rational choice theory offers a new means for developing correctable answers to these questions. This volume illustrates the promise of rational choice theory and demonstrates how theory can help us develop interesting, fresh conclusions about the fundamental processes of politics. Each of the book’s three sections begins with a pedagogical overview that is accessible to those with little knowledge of rational choice theory. The first group of essays then discusses various ways in which rational choice contributes to our understanding of the foundations of government. The second set focuses on the contributions of rational choice theory to institutional analysis. The final group demonstrates ways in which rational choice theory helps to understand the character of popular government.