Abstract
This paper demonstrates the significant and extensive impactof W.H. Riker's works on the study of political science andpublic choice. We provide a citation analysis, peer reviews,and commentaries from former colleagues and students. Thecitation analysis shows that Riker's work has been cited morethan 3700 times by over 2000 different scholars in more than500 different journals. Peers, former colleagues and studentshighly respected him as a scholar and a person. Riker's mostsignificant intellectual contributions include using gametheory to analyze political behavior and incorporatingrational interest theory as a basis for the scientific studyof politics.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Aldrich, J. (2002). William H. Riker. Encyclopedia of Public Choice. Forthcoming.
Amadae, S.M. and Bueno de Mesquita, B. (1999). The Rochester School: The origins of positive political theory. Annual Review of Political Science 2: 269-296.
Arrow, K.J. (1963). Social choice and individual values. London: Yale University Press. Second edition (1951).
Black, D. (1948). On the rationale of group decision making. Journal of Political Eocnomy 56: 23-34.
Buchanan, J.M. and Tullock, G. (1962). The Calculus of Consent. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
Bueno de Mesquita, B. and Shepsle, K. (2001). William Harrison Riker: 1920-1993. Biographical Memoirs 79. Washington, DC: The National Academy Press.
Blaug, M. and Sturges, P. (1986). Who's who in economics: A biography of major economists, 1700-1981. Second U.S. edition. Cambridge: MIT Press.
Downs, A. (1957). An economic theory of democracy. New York: Harper.
Durden, G.C. and Ellis, L.V. (1993). A method for identifying the most influential articles in an academic discipline. Atlantic Economic Journal 21: 1-10.
Durden, G.C., Ellis, L.V. and Millsaps, S.W. (1991). Gordon Tullock: His Journal and his scholarship. Public Choice 71: 171-196.
Durden, G.C. and Millsaps, S.W. (1996). James Buchanan's contributions to social and economic thought: Citation counts, self-assessment, and peer review. Constitutional Political Economy 7: 133-151.
Green, D.P. and Shapiro, I. (1994). Pathologies of rational choice theory: A critique of applications in political science. New Haven; London: Yale University Press.
Hirsch, B.T., Austin, R., Brooks, J. and Moore, J.B. (1984). Economics departmental rankings: Comment. American Economic Review 74: 822-826.
Koford, K. (1991). On dimensionalizing roll call votes in the United States Congress. American Political Science Review 85: 955-975.
Laband, D.N. (1986). A ranking of the top U.S. economics departments by research productivity of graduates. Journal of Economic Education 17: 70-76.
Liebowitz, S.I. and Palmer, J.P. (1984). Assessing the relative impacts of economics journals. Journal of Economic Literature 22: 77-88.
Mackie, G. (2001). Is democracy impossible?: Riker's mistaken accounts of antebellum politics. Paper presented at the Public Choice Society, San Antonio, Texas 2001.
Mackie, G. (2001). The coherence of democracy. Canberra. Unpublished manuscript.
McKelvey, R.D. (1976). Intransitivities in multidimensional voting models and some implications for agenda control. Journal of Economic Theory 12: 472-482.
McLean, I. (2002). William H. Riker and the invention of heresthetic(s). British Journal of Political Science. Forthcoming.
McLean, I. and Bustani, C. (1999). Irish potatoes and British politics: Interest, ideology, heresthetic and the repeal of the corn laws. Political Studies 47: 817-836.
Medoff, M.H. (1989). The ranking of economists. Journal of Economic Education 20: 405-410.
Mitchell, W.C. (1988). Virginia, Rochester, and Bloomington: Twenty-five years of public choice and political science. Public Choice 56: 101-199.
Mueller, D.C. (1976). Public choice: A survey. Journal of Economic Literature 14: 395-433.
Niskanen, W.A. (1971). Bureaucracy and representative government. Chicago: Aldine, Atherton.
Paine, S.C. (1989). Persuasion, manipulation, and dimension. The Journal of Politics 51: 36-49.
Poole, K. and Rosenthal, H. (1997). Congress: A political-economic history of roll call voting. New York; Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Olson, M. (1965). The logic of collective action: Public goods and the theory of groups. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Quandt, R.E. (1976). Some quantitative aspects of the economics journal literature. Journal of Political Economy 84: 741-755.
Riker, W.H. (1962). The theory of political coalitions. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Riker, W.H. (1964). Federalism: Origin, operation, maintenance. Boston: Little Brown.
Riker, W.H. (1980). Implications from the disequilibrium of majority rule for the study of institutions. American Political Science Review 74: 432-446, 456-458.
Riker, W.H. (1982a). Liberalism against populism: A confrontation between the theory of democracy and the theory of social choice. San Francisco: W.H. Freeman.
Riker, W.H. (1982b). The two-party system and Duverger's Law: An essay on the history of political science. American Political Science Review 76: 753-766.
Riker, W.H. (1983). Political theory and the art of heresthetics. In A.W. Finifter (Ed.), Political science: The state of the discipline, 47-67. Washington: American Political Science Association.
Riker, W.H. (1984). The heresthetics of constitution making: The presidency in 1787, with comments on determinism and rational choice. American Political Science Review 78: 1-16.
Riker, W.H. (1986). The art of political manipulation. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Riker, W.H. (1988). The place of political science in public choice. Public Choice 37: 247- 257.
Riker, W.H. (1996). The strategy of rhetoric: Campaigning for the American Constitution. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Riker, W.H. and Ordeshook, P.C. (1968). A theory of the calculus of voting. American Political Science Review 62: 25-42.
Riker, W.H. and Ordeshook, P.C. (1973). Introduction to positive political theory. New York: Prentice-Hall.
Saari, D. (1997). Generic existence of a core for Q-rules. Economic Theory 9: 219-260.
Schofield, N. (1995). Rational choice and political economy. Critical Review 9: 189-211.
Schonhardt-Bailey, C. (2000). Ideology, party and interest in the British Parliament of 1841-1947. Paper presented at the American Political Science Association Annual Meeting, Washington, DC.
Shepsle, K.A. and Weingast, B.R. (1984). Uncovered sets and sophisticated voting outcomes with implications for agenca institutions. American Journal of Political Science 28: 49-74.
Shepsle, K.A. and Weingast, B.R. (1995). Positive theories of congressional institutions. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
Tullock, G. (1981). Why so much stability? Public Choice 37: 189-202.
Von Neumann, J. and Morgenstern, O. (1944). Theory of games and economic behavior. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Maske, K., Durden, G. The Contributions and Impact of Professor William H. Riker. Public Choice 117, 191–220 (2003). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1026117828869
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1026117828869