Rational Politics PDF Download
Are you looking for read ebook online? Search for your book and save it on your Kindle device, PC, phones or tablets. Download Rational Politics PDF full book. Access full book title Rational Politics by Steven J. Brams. Download full books in PDF and EPUB format.
Author: Steven J. Brams
Publisher: Academic Press
ISBN: 1483258572
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 248
Get Book Here
Book Description
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.
Author: Steven J. Brams
Publisher: Academic Press
ISBN: 1483258572
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 248
Get Book Here
Book Description
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.
Author: Donald Green
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300187084
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 415
Get Book Here
Book Description
This is the first comprehensive critical evaluation of the use of rational choice theory in political science. Writing in an accessible and nontechnical style, Donald P. Green and Ian Shapiro assess rational choice theory where it is reputed to be most successful: the study of collective action, the behavior of political parties and politicians, and such phenomena as voting cycles and Prisoner's Dilemmas. In their hard-hitting critique, Green and Shapiro demonstrate that the much heralded achievements of rational choice theory are in fact deeply suspect and that fundamental rethinking is needed if rational choice theorists are to contribute to the understanding of politics. In their final chapters, they anticipate and respond to a variety of possible rational choice responses to their arguments, thereby initiating a dialogue that is bound to continue for some time.
Author: Karen Schweers Cook
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226742415
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 436
Get Book Here
Book Description
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.
Author: Charles L. Glaser
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 1400835135
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 329
Get Book Here
Book Description
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.
Author: Joe Oppenheimer
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107014883
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 311
Get Book Here
Book Description
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.
Author: Benjamin I. Page
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226644804
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 507
Get Book Here
Book Description
This monumental study is a comprehensive critical survey of the policy preferences of the American public, and will be the definitive work on American public opinion for some time to come. Drawing on an enormous body of public opinion data, Benjamin I. Page and Robert Y. Shapiro provide the richest available portrait of the political views of Americans, from the 1930's to 1990. They not only cover all types of domestic and foreign policy issues, but also consider how opinions vary by age, gender, race, region, and the like. The authors unequivocally demonstrate that, notwithstanding fluctuations in the opinions of individuals, collective public opinion is remarkably coherent: it reflects a stable system of values shared by the majority of Americans and it responds sensitively to new events, arguments, and information reported in the mass media. While documenting some alarming case of manipulation, Page and Shapiro solidly establish the soundness and value of collective political opinion. The Rational Public provides a wealth of information about what we as a nation have wanted from government, how we have changed our minds over the years, and why. For anyone interested in the short- and long-term trends in Americans' policy preferences, or eager to learn what Americans have thought about issues ranging from racial equality to the MX missile, welfare to abortion, this book offers by far the most sophisticated and detailed treatment available.
Author: S.M. Amadae
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226016544
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 414
Get Book Here
Book Description
Offering a fascinating biography of a foundational theory, Amadae reveals not only how the ideological battles of the Cold War shaped ideas but also how those ideas may today be undermining the very notion of individual liberty they were created to defend.
Author: Dennis Chong
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226104370
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 305
Get Book Here
Book Description
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
Author: Jon Elster
Publisher: NYU Press
ISBN: 0814721699
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 273
Get Book Here
Book Description
This series brings together a carefully edited selection of the most influential and enduring articles on central topics in social and political theory. Each volume contains ten to twelve articles and an introductory essay by the editor.
Author: Juergen Habermas
Publisher: Beacon Press
ISBN: 9780807041772
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 146
Get Book Here
Book Description
Knowledge, communication, action – These are the concepts central to all of Habermas's thought. As a philosopher, he is concerned with the rational connections of these concepts. As a sociologist, he is prepared to analyze with care the distortions of human interactions caused by existing social and political institutions. In a series of connected essays, the author assesses the function of the contemporary university, and sharply analyzes contemporary students and their political efforts. He then brilliantly analyzes as a communications model the relationships between research institutes and the political agencies which employ them. The book concludes with a complex discussion of technology and science as an "ideology," dedicated to Herbert Marcuse. Critical parts of Marcuse's thought, Habermas dissects contemporary democratic dialogue and offers an important preliminary sketch of a general theory of social evolution. He analyzes the difference between the technological sphere of control and the practical sphere of communication and interaction as the basic feature of human social life, and explains how and why the predominance of the technological sphere is the distinguishing and alienating characteristic of advanced industrial society. The concepts of depoliticization and the freeing of communication emerge as the crux of today's political situation.
