Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

The Theory of Rational Choice

  • Chapter
  • First Online:
Sociological Theory

  • 35 Accesses

Abstract

After exposing the prisoner’s dilemma, this chapter will explore the thinking of four representatives of this school of thought and their approaches to studying society: James S. Coleman’s Internal Analysis of Systemic Behavior, George Homans’s and Peter Blau’s exchange theory, and Mearsheimer’s offensive realism. To explore Coleman’s theory further, the text will examine della Porta’s explanation through mechanisms of the birth, persistence, and decline of terrorist organizations. The text will also explore Kruglanski’s significance-quest theory and Petersen’s sociology of emotions to understand the limitations of the rational choice theory. The final section will be dedicated to Mearsheimer’s theory of offensive realism, which conceives states as rational actors.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution
Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 54.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 69.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

References

  • Allison, Graham. 2017. Destined for War. Can China and the Us Escape Thucydide’s Trap? Boston: Mariner Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • Art, Robert J. 1998/1999. Geopolitics Updated. The Strategy of Selective Engagement. International Security 23 (3): 79–113.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Barbera, Filippo. 2007. A Star Is Born? The Authors, Principles and Objectives of Analytical Sociology. Papers: Revista De Sociologia 80: 31–50.

    Google Scholar 

  • Blau, Peter. 1963. The Dynamics of Bureaucracy. A Study of Interpersonal Relations in Two Government Agencies (1955). Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 1964. Exchange and Power in Social Life. New York: J. Wiley.

    Google Scholar 

  • Blau, Reva. 2010. Peter Michael Blau. Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 154 (3): 317–320.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bunge, Mario. 1996. Finding Philosophy in Social Sciences. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 2000. Systemism. The Alternative to Individualism and Holism. The Journal of Socio-Economics 29 (2): 147–157.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Coleman, James C. 1961. The Adolescent Society. The Social Life of the Teenager and Its Impact on Education. New York: Free Press of Glencoe.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 1966. Equality of Educational Opportunity [Summary Report]. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, Office of Education.

    Google Scholar 

  • Coleman, James S. 1988. Social Capital in the Creation of Human Capital. The American Journal of Sociology 94: 95–120.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • ———. 1990. Foundations of Social Theory. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Collins, Randall. 1988. Theoretical Sociology. San Diego: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.

    Google Scholar 

  • Della Porta, Donatella. 1995. Social Movements, Political Violence and the State. A Comparative Analysis of Italy and Germany. New York: Cambridge University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • ———. 2013. Clandestine Political Violence. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Elster, Jon. 1986. Introduction. In Rational Choice Theory, ed. Jon Elster, 1–33. New York: New York University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Elster, John. 2007. Explaining Social Behavior. More Nuts and Bolts for the Social Sciences. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Emerson, Richard M. 1962. Power-Dependence Relations. American Sociological Review 27 (1): 31–40.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • ———. 1972a. Exchange Theory, Part I: A Psychological Basis for Social Exchange. In Sociological Theories in Progress, ed. J. Berger, M. Zelditch Jr., B. Anderson, vol. II, 38–57. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 1972b. Exchange Theory, Part II: Exchange Relations and Networks. In Sociological Theories in Progress, ed. J. Berger, M. Zelditch Jr., B. Anderson, vol. II, 58–87. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 1976. Social Exchange Theory. Annual Review of Sociology 2: 35–362.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Frankel, Benjamin. 1996. Restating the Realist Case: An Introduction. Security Studies 5 (3): 9–20.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Freedman, Lawrence. 2013. Strategy. A History. New York: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Fukuyama, Francis. 1992. The End of History and the Last Man. New York: Free Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Goldstone, Jack A., ed. 1986. Revolutions: Theoretical, Comparative, and Historical Studies. Orlando, FL: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gurr, Ted R. 1970. Why Men Rebel. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 1986. Persisting Patterns of Repression and Rebellion: Foundations for a General Theory of Political Coercion. In Persistent Patterns and Emergent Structures in a Waning Century, ed. Margareth P. Karns. New York: Praeger.

    Google Scholar 

  • Harris, Scott R. 2015. An Invitation to the Sociology of Emotions. New York and London: Routledge.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Hedström, Peter, and Richard Swedberg. 1996. Rational Choice, Empirical Research, and the Sociological Tradition. European Sociological Review 12 (2): 127–146.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hedström, Peter, and Petri Ylikoski. 2010. Causal Mechanism in the Social Sciences. Annual Review of Sociology 36: 49–67.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hertz, John. 1950. Idealist Internationalism and the Security Dilemma. World Politics 2 (2): 157–180.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Homans, George. 1950. The Human Group. New York: Harcourt Brace.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 1962. Sentiments and Activities: Essays in Social Science. New York: Free Press of Glencoe.

    Google Scholar 

  • Homans, George. 1984. Coming to My Senses: The Autobiography of a Sociologist. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • Homans, George C. 1974. Social Behavior. Its Elementary Forms (1961). New York: Harcourt Brace.

    Google Scholar 

  • Homans, George C., and Charles P. Curtis Jr. 1970. An Introduction to Pareto. His Sociology (1934). New York: Howard Fertig.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kiser, Edgar, and Michael Hechter. 1998. The Debate on Historical Sociology: Rational Choice Theory and Its Critics. The American Journal of Sociology 3: 785–816.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Krauthammer, Charles. 1990. The Unipolar Moment. Foreign Affairs 70 (1): 23–33.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kruglanski, Arie, Jocelyn J. Bélanger, and Roan Gunaratna. 2019. The Three Pillars of Radicalization. Needs, Narratives, and Networks. New York: Oxford University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Kupchan, Charles A. 2002. The End of the American Era. U.S. Foreign Policy and the Geopolitics of the Twenty-first Century. New York: Knopf.

    Google Scholar 

  • Laquer, Walter. 1976. Guerrilla: A Historical and Critical Study. Boston, MA: Little Brown.

    Google Scholar 

  • Leites, Nathan, and Charles Wolf. 1970. Rebellion and Authority. An Analytic Essay on Insurgent Conflicts. Chicago, IL: Markham Pub. Co.

    Google Scholar 

  • March, James G. 1986. Bounded Rationality, Ambiguity, and the Engineering of Choice. In Rational Choice, ed. Jon Elster, 142–170. New York: New York University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mayntz, Renate. 2004. Mechanisms in the Analysis of Social Macro-Phenomena. Philosophy of the Social Sciences 34 (2): 237–259.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • McCauley, Clark, and Sophia Moskalenko. 2011. Friction. How Radicalization Happens Between Them and Us. New York: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • McClelland, David. 1961. The Achieving Society. D. Van Nostrand Co: Princeton, NJ.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • McClintock, Elizabeth Aura. 2014. Beauty and Status: The Illusion of Exchange in Partner Selection? American Sociological Review 79 (4): 575–604.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Mearsheimer, John J. 2001. The Tragedy of Great Power Politics. New York: Norton.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 2010. Why Leaders Lie: The Truth About Lying in International Politics. New York: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 2014. Why the Ukraine Crisis Is the West’s Fault. Foreign Affairs 93 (5): 77–89.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mearsheimer, John J., and Sebastian Rosato. 2023. How States Think. The Rationality of Foreign Policy. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Mearsheimer, John J., and Stephen M. Walt. 2016. The Case for Offshore Balancing. A Superior U.S. Grand Strategy. Foreign Affairs 95 (4): 70–83.

    Google Scholar 

  • Morgenthau, Hans J. 1948. Politics Among Nations. The Struggle for Power and Peace. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.

    Google Scholar 

  • O’Rourke, Lindsey. 2018. Covert Regime Change. America’s Secret Cold War. Ithaca, NY and London: Cornell University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Oberschall, Anthony. 1978. Theory of Social Conflict. Annual Review of Sociology 4: 291–315.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Orsini, Alessandro. 2011. Anatomy of the Red Brigades. The Religious Mind-set of Modern Terrorists. Ithaca, NY and London: Cornell University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • ———. 2016. ISIS. I terroristi più fortunati del mondo e tutto ciò che è stato fatto per favorirli. Milano: Rizzoli.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 2019. Introduzione a John Mearsheimer. La tragedia delle grandi potenze. Roma: Luiss University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 2022. Ucraina. Critica della politica internazionale. Roma: Paper First.

    Google Scholar 

  • Palmerio, Giovanni. 1979. Economia politica. Florence: Le Monnier.

    Google Scholar 

  • Panebianco, Angelo. 2009. L’automa e lo spirito. Azioni individuali, istituzioni, imprese collettive. Bologna: il Mulino.

    Google Scholar 

  • Petersen, Roger. 2002. Understanding Ethnic Violence. Fear, Hatred, and Resentment in Twentieth-Century Eastern Europe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • ———. 2004. Resistance and Rebellion. Lessons from Eastern Europe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 2011. Western Intervention in the Balkans: The Strategic Use of Emotion in Conflict. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • ———. 2017. Emotions as the Residue of Lived Experience. Political Science & Politics 50 (4): 932–935.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • ———. 2020. Emotions and Backlash in US Society and Politics. The British Journal of Politics and International Relations 22 (4): 609–618.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Pettit, Philip. 1993. The Common Mind. An Essay on Psychology, Society, and Politics. New York: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Popper, Karl R. 1979. Objective Knowledge. An Evolutionary Approach (1972). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Posen, Barry R. 1984. The Sources of Military Doctrine. France, Britain, and Germany between the World Wars. Ithaca, NY and London: Cornell University.

    Google Scholar 

  • Raub, Werner, ed. 1982. The Structural-Individualistic Approach towards an Explanatory Sociology. In Theoretical Models and Empirical Analysis, 3–40. Utrecht: E. S. Publications.

    Google Scholar 

  • Raub, Werner, and Thomas Voss. 2017. Micro-Macro Models in Sociology: Antecedents of Coleman’s Diagram. In Social Dilemmas, Institutions, and the Evolution of Cooperation, ed. Ben Jann and Wojtek Przepiorka. Berlin and Boston, MA: De Gruyter.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sageman, Marc. 2004. Understanding Terror Networks. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Schelling, Thomas S. 1960. The Strategy of Conflict. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Stouffer, Samuel A. 1949. The American Soldier (2 vols.). Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Tilly, Charles. 1978. From Mobilization to Revolution. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.

    Google Scholar 

  • Treviño, Javier A. 2006. Introduction. The Sentiments and Activities of George C. Homans. In George C. Homans: History, Theory, and Method (2006), ed. Javier A. Treviño, 1–42. London: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Trigilia, Carlo. 2005. Introduzione a James S. Coleman, Fondamenti di teoria sociale. Bologna: il Mulino.

    Google Scholar 

  • Tullock, Gordon. 1974. The Social Dilemma: The Economics of War and Revolution. Blacksburg, VA: University Publications.

    Google Scholar 

  • Turner, Jonathan T., and Jan E. Stets. 2005. The Sociology of Emotions. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Udehn, Lars. 2001. Methodological Individualism. Background, History, and Meaning. London: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 2002. The Changing Face of Methodological Individualism. Annual Review of Sociology 28: 479–507.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Vogel, Ezra F. 1990. George Caspar Homans. Footnotes 18 (10): 14.

    Google Scholar 

  • Waltz, Kenneth N. 1979. Theory of International Politics. New York: Random House.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 2012. Why Iran Should Get the Bomb. Nuclear Balancing Would Mean Stability. Foreign Affairs 91 (4): 2–5.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ylikoski, Petri. 2016. Thinking with the Coleman Boat, The IAS Working Paper Series IAS Working Paper Series, 1–38. The Institute for Analytical Sociology.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Political Science, Luiss University of Rome, Rome, Roma, Italy

    Alessandro Orsini

Authors
  1. Alessandro Orsini
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2024 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG

About this chapter

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this chapter

Orsini, A. (2024). The Theory of Rational Choice. In: Sociological Theory. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-52539-1_13

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-52539-1_13

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-031-52538-4

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-031-52539-1

  • eBook Packages: Social SciencesSocial Sciences (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation