Rationality And Ritual

"Why do beer commercials dominate Super Bowl advertising? How do political ceremonies establish authority? Why were circular forms favored for public festivals during the French Revolution? This book answers these questions using a single concept: common knowledge. Game theory shows that in order to coordinate its actions, a group of people must form "common knowledge." Each person wants to participate only if others also participate. Members must have knowledge of each other, knowledge of that knowledge, and so on. Michael Chwe applies this insight, with striking erudition, to analyze a range of rituals across history and cultures. He shows that public ceremonies are powerful not simply because they transmit meaning from a central source to each audience member but because they let audience members know what other members know. In a new afterword, Chwe delves into new applications of common knowledge, both in the real world and in experiments, and considers how generating common knowledge has become easier in the digital age." -- From the jacket.

In Rationality and Ritual, internationally renowned expert Brian Wynne offers a profound analysis of science and technology policymaking. By focusing on an episode of major importance in Britain's nuclear history – the Windscale Inquiry, a public hearing about the future of fuel reprocessing – he offers a powerful critique of such judicial procedures and the underlying assumptions of the rationalist approach. This second edition makes available again this classic and still very relevant work. Debates about nuclear power have come to the fore once again. Yet we still do not have adequate ways to make decisions or frame policy deliberation on these big issues, involving true public debate, rather than ritualistic processes in which the rules and scope of the debate are presumed and imposed by those in authority. The perspectives in this book are as significant and original as they were when it was written. The new edition contains a substantial introduction by the author reflecting on changes (and lack of) in the intervening years and introducing new themes, relevant to today's world of big science and technology, that can be drawn out of the original text. A new foreword by Gordon MacKerron, an expert on energy and nuclear policy, sets this seminal work in the context of contemporary nuclear and related big technology debates.

This groundbreaking book launches a passionate crusade for ‘rational marketing’ – based on facts and data, rather than guesswork, traditions and raindancing. Marketing without measurement is myth. “Until now,” says Glenn Granger, “marketers have been flying blind. Even the big brands that can afford to pay consultants for data modelling and forecasting are only getting snapshots, retrospectively, once or twice a year. And media costs are high, so the numbers can be huge. Nowhere outside marketing are millions invested – or gambled – with so little analysis and scrutiny.” How different would business be if powerful modelling tools that were as easy to use as spreadsheets or word processors could be there on every marketer’s desktop? What if these tools could help with everyday decisions, like whether to take up a media owner’s last-minute 3-for-2 offer, and whether a price cut would be a great move or commercial suicide? Bringing rational accountability to marketing is not about deskilling. It is about giving the marketer a new power to fine tune campaign spending, defend budgets and predict the impact of specific initiatives. Glenn Granger draws on his own high-level consulting and business experience to make the case for this urgently-needed marketing revolution. His upbeat, non-technical style makes Raindancing startling, vivid and vital reading for chief executives, finance directors, CMOs and everyone who works in marketing.

In Rationality and Ritual, internationally renowned expert Brian Wynne offers a profound analysis of science and technology policymaking. By focusing on an episode of major importance in Britain's nuclear history – the Windscale Inquiry, a public hearing about the future of fuel reprocessing – he offers a powerful critique of such judicial procedures and the underlying assumptions of the rationalist approach. This second edition makes available again this classic and still very relevant work. Debates about nuclear power have come to the fore once again. Yet we still do not have adequate ways to make decisions or frame policy deliberation on these big issues, involving true public debate, rather than ritualistic processes in which the rules and scope of the debate are presumed and imposed by those in authority. The perspectives in this book are as significant and original as they were when it was written. The new edition contains a substantial introduction by the author reflecting on changes (and lack of) in the intervening years and introducing new themes, relevant to today's world of big science and technology, that can be drawn out of the original text. A new foreword by Gordon MacKerron, an expert on energy and nuclear policy, sets this seminal work in the context of contemporary nuclear and related big technology debates.

According to accepted wisdom, rational practices and ritual action are opposed. Rituals drain wealth from capital investment and draw on a mode of thought different from practical ideas. The studies in this volume contest this view. Comparative, historical, and contemporary, the six ethnographies extend from Macedonia to Kyrgyzstan. Each one illuminates the economic and ritual changes in an area as it emerged from socialism and (re-)entered market society. Cutting against the idea that economy only means markets and that market action exhausts the meaning of economy, the studies show that much of what is critical for a people’s economic life takes place outside markets and hinges on ritual, understood as the negation of the everyday world of economising.

How the works of Jane Austen show that game theory is present in all human behavior Game theory—the study of how people make choices while interacting with others—is one of the most popular technical approaches in social science today. But as Michael Chwe reveals in his insightful new book, Jane Austen explored game theory's core ideas in her six novels roughly two hundred years ago—over a century before its mathematical development during the Cold War. Jane Austen, Game Theorist shows how this beloved writer theorized choice and preferences, prized strategic thinking, and analyzed why superiors are often strategically clueless about inferiors. Exploring a diverse range of literature and folktales, this book illustrates the wide relevance of game theory and how, fundamentally, we are all strategic thinkers.