Abstract
‘Rational choice in political science’ stands for the application of the economics approach in the study of political phenomena. The research program is to rationalize collective behaviour that comes across as stupid or counterproductive. In its highbrow (esoteric) variant, rational choice is on the way out in political science. In its low-brow (sensible) variant, rational choice is here to stay, not as the dominant approach, but as one of three equal, and complementary, approaches: the rationalist approach, which focuses on individual agency; the culturalist approach, which centres on collective identities; and the structuralist approach, which emphasizes historical institutionalism.
Keywords
- Arrow, K. J.
- Asymmetric information
- Behavioural economics
- Buchanan, James
- Tullock, Gordon
- Olson, Mancur
- Hayek, F. A.
- Aristotle
- Hobbes, T.
- Coase Theorem
- Collective action
- Complex systems approach in social science
- Complexity
- Congressional committees
- Culturalist approach in political science
- Historical institutionalism
- Collective identities
- Individual agency
- Institutionalism
- Agency
- Public choice
- Externalities
- Government intervention
- Politics of monetary policy
- Logic of Collective Action
- Supply of and demand for collective action
- Greed, rationality, and equilibrium
- Keynesian approach
- Hayekian approach
- Developing countries
- Social complexity
- Post-autistic economics movement
- Political science
- Deadweight loss
- Development economics
- Experimental Economics
- Free-rider problem
- Game theory
- Government failure
- Independence of irrelevant alternatives
- Market failure
- Political economy
- Positive political theory
- Preference aggregation
- Rational choice
- Rational choice in political science
- Representative agent
- Self-interest
- Social choice
- Social welfare function
- Special interests
- Structuralist approach in political science
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Lohmann, S. (2018). Rational Choice and Political Science. In: The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-349-95189-5_2341
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-349-95189-5_2341
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