Rational Choice and Dysfunctional Institutions

This paper aims to discuss psychological aspect of rational choice theory. The standard version of rational choice rests on a kind of psychology, since it operates with mental states. In standard davidsonian version it is claimed that we explain rational actions by stating proper desires and beliefs that caused the action. We will explore two challenges to the standard version that might be called cultural and naturalistic versions of rational choice. Satz and Ferejohn (1994) challenged standard version by stating that we can provide rational-choice explanations without relying too much on psychological assumptions. They argued in favor of moderate externalism, which should replace thin desire-belief model with thick structuralist conception. According to their model moderate externalism is compatible with realism about psychological states, while at the same time those states need not figure in the best rational choice explanations of actions. The focus of rational choice explanations therefore shifts to non-individual and non-psychological entities, such as firms in explaining economic behavior, parties in explaining functioning of democracy, etc. Although there is a place for psychological states within a moderate externalism, those states are not causally relevant. On Pettit?s account desires and beliefs figure in rational choice explanations merely as ?standby causes?. They explain resilience of certain behavior, not its actual cause. Quite contrary to standard rational choice theory, the programming model (Pettit, 2002) defines the neurophysiological level as more basic in explaining behavior. This means that higher-level psychological states are causally relevant for certain behavior only if certain lower-level neurophysiological producer obtains. In this paper standard rational choice theory will be defended against culturalist and naturalist criticism.

In this chapter, we look at models and approaches to FPDM that proceed from rational actor assumptions. We examine the expected utility model of war and some game-theoretic models such as the Prisoner's Dilemma, Chicken Game, and the Tit-for-Tat strategy. THE RATIONAL ACTOR MODEL The rational actor model is a linchpin of FPDM. Paul MacDonald (2003, 551) contends that many see it “as the most plausible candidate for a universal theory of political and social behavior, whose simple and intuitively plausible assumptions hold the promise of unifying the diverse subfields of political science.” Whereas many scholars criticize the model, others strongly defend it. Before a model can be proposed based on its tenets or its underlying assumptions criticized, we must first understand it. A rational approach extensively used in foreign policy analysis today, expected utility theory (EUT) sprang from the work of von Neumann and Morgenstern in the 1940s. The approach has its roots in microeconomics. The decision maker is assumed to be able to rank preferences “according to the degree of satisfaction of achieving these goals and objectives” (Sage 1990, 233). The rational actor is also expected to be able to identify alternatives and their consequences and to select from these alternatives in an effort to maximize satisfaction. In this setting, the rational economic decision maker is expected to be able to access a set of objectives and goals.

The authors employ Rawls's distinction between the reasonable and rational capacities to show why and how rational choice theory cannot provide adequate explanations of human behavior. According to Rawls, the reasonable capacity, associated with the concept of right and the sense of justice, is no less fundamental a moral power than is the rational, associated with the concept of the good and self-interest. Since rational choice analysis presupposes the primacy of rationality, however, those who rely upon it see persons' expressions of conceptions of right as expressions of rationality. The authors argue that in cases ranging from prisoner's dilemma experiments to the analysis of social institutions, rational choice theorists encounter expressions of the reasonable but cannot, because of their theoretical commitments, take systematic account of them. The article concludes by making some tentative suggestions about the form political analysis based on both the reasonable and the rational capacities might take.

In this article we offer visual depictions and analysis of contextual factors relative to the presence of public safety networks (PSNs) in the United States (US). A PSN combines shared technological infrastructures for supporting information sharing, computing interoperability and interagency interactions involving policing, criminal justice, and emergency response. The broad research objective is to explain the formation of PSNs based upon factors derived from rational choice and institutional theories. To do so we develop maps to represent our data analysis. This analysis suggests that our approach is promising for generating insights about PSNs and, by extension, about other types of inter-organizational collaborations focusing on using information and communication technologies to enable information-sharing.

»Vielmehr bietet [der Kommentar] auf höchstem Niveau eine substantielle Auseinandersetzung mit den Hintergründen, den Zusammenhängen, der Theorie und der Praxis des Grundgesetzes. Besseres lässt sich von einem Verfassungskommentar nicht sagen.“ Herbert Günther Staaatsanzeiger für das Land Hessen 2018 (50), 1494–1495

Presidency, United States

This paper confirms the existence of public interest groups as a theoretical puzzle for an Olson type (economically-driven) rational choice explanation. It systematically reviews different theoretical approaches that challenge this appearance of paradox. The paper also introduces some British survey data. It concludes that rational choice analysis must subsume non-material incentives, but shows that discussions predicated on conceptions of rationality other than that used by Olson do not imply that participation is a problem to be explained. It also points to the importance of group activity in shaping the preferences of potential members and in stimulating membership.

The relevance of this study is determined by the Russian economy’s continued dependence on raw materials and the presence of systemic barriers to its transition to an innovative development model. Despite long-term strategies and government programs aimed at modernization, the share of innovative goods, works, and services in GDP remains low. Therefore, the aim of this article is to comprehensively analyze the barriers to innovative development in the Russian economy through the lens of historical, institutional, and rational characteristics. The author demonstrates that historical continuity (resource orientation, the gap between science and production) has created the foundation for contemporary institutional failures. The system of institutional barriers highlights the underdevelopment of financial institutions and weak protection of intellectual property rights. Rational barriers are explored through the prism of the economic behavior of entities, for whom a rent-seeking strategy is often more profitable than an innovative one. It is the mutual reinforcement of these factors that creates a systemic barrier to innovation. It has been established that the key problems of innovative development in the domestic economy include chronic underfunding of R&D, the outflow of skilled personnel, dependence on technology imports, weak innovation transfer, and mental barriers. The methodological basis of the study is formed by the principles of institutional economic theory, methods of historical and systems analysis, and approaches based on rational choice theory. The scientific novelty of the study lies in its comprehensive examination of barriers to innovative development as a triune system, where historical preconditions shape the institutional environment, which, in turn, determines rational behavioral strategies that ultimately reproduce the original constraints. The main conclusion is that barriers to innovative development in Russia are self-perpetuating and that overcoming them requires not isolated measures, but rather comprehensive institutional reform and changes in business incentives. Recommendations are offered for improving public policy to stimulate scientific and technological progress and effectively implement innovations in the real sector, including the agro-industrial complex.

Recent International Relations scholarship offers valuable rational choice explanations for the design of international institutions. However, the rational design literature has relied heavily on institutional outcomes as evidence for testing models. Such studies must be complemented by research designs that analyze the decisions and bargaining that drive design choices in order to expose causal mechanisms and test a wider range of observable implications. I assess an important rational design hypothesis, that uncertainty leads to flexible institutions, by analyzing the negotiations behind the climate change regime and by considering two distinct institutional outcomes across time. While the hypothesis receives considerable support, significant behavior and outcomes do not conform to its logic. I propose refinements for rational design theory in general and work on uncertainty and flexibility in particular. Rational choice theory speaks to the process of institutional design and should not content itself with predicting — and testing itself against — equilibrium outcomes.

The author uses airline industry data to evaluate the role of economic, institutional, and strategic choice factors as determinants of seven types of concession bargaining outcomes. The results indicate that economic characteristics, particularly “ability to pay” measures, are the best predictors of most concessions. Institutional characteristics, such as the percentage of union members employed in the airline industry, are apparently less important, but their addition to the economic and strategic choice variables does improve the model's predictive power. Least influential, the author finds, are the strategic choice variables, such as a decision to compete on the basis of low-cost service. She notes, however, that it is difficult to identify effects of strategic choices independent from the effects of more traditional economic variables.

Research Article| July 01 2011 Universals, Knowledge Claims, and Methods Joe Oppenheimer Joe Oppenheimer Joe Oppenheimer has written extensively on issues of social justice and rational choice theory. His latest works include three co-authored articles in the Journal of Politics reinterpreting all behavioral results in n-person prisoner dilemma games and Political Principles: A Rational Choice Theory Guide to Politics and Social Welfare. Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google The Good Society (2011) 20 (2): 249–280. https://doi.org/10.5325/goodsociety.20.2.0249 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Permissions Search Site Citation Joe Oppenheimer; Universals, Knowledge Claims, and Methods. The Good Society 1 July 2011; 20 (2): 249–280. doi: https://doi.org/10.5325/goodsociety.20.2.0249 Download citation file: Zotero Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All Scholarly Publishing CollectivePenn State University PressThe Good Society Search Advanced Search The text of this article is only available as a PDF. Copyright © 2012 The Pennsylvania State University2012The Pennsylvania State University Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.

We explore two behavioral mechanisms that may help explain why voter turnout is often in excess of that predicted by rational choice theory: (1) collectivist voters may derive utility from taking part in a cooperative, collective action with other voters, or (2) voters who overweight small probabilities may overweight the likelihood of influencing the outcome of the election. In experimental elections, we confirm both associations. Voters are more likely to incur a personal cost to vote if they score higher on a measure of psychological collectivism, or alternatively, if they display collectivist tendencies via their cooperative behavior in incentivized prisoner dilemma games. Voters are also more likely to incur a cost to vote if they assign more psychological weight to small probabilities, as measured with incentivized gambles. Neither correlation significantly interacts with the size or skew of the electorate. In addition to explaining the source of some over-voting, our results imply that collectivist and probability weighting individuals are over-represented in voting pools.

This chapter provides a general framework for studying individual political decision-making that applies to both everyday citizens and to political elites. Focusing primarily on mass behavior, it presents this framework within a broader cognitive perspective of humans as limited-capacity information processors who have developed at least two quite distinct modes of processing, one preconscious, automatic, low effort, and extremely fast (System 1); the other conscious, volitional, high effect, and relatively slow (System 2). After a brief foray into rational choice theory, the chapter spends much more time with behavioral decision theory and its bounded rationality perspective on how people normally cope with their cognitive limits. The strengths and weaknesses of various methods for studying decision-making are reviewed. Four broad types of decision strategies are discussed: dispassionate, confirmatory, fast and frugal, and intuitive. The effects of integral and incidental emotions on decision-making are also reviewed. The chapter concludes by considering the effects of decision strategy on decision quality and learning.

A previously reported positive influence of a distractor alternative on decision accuracy was driven by an unintended covariation between key variables, beyond which the distractor has a modest negative influence on accuracy, possibly mirroring asymmetric multiattribute context effects.

Democracy's checkered past and uncertain future in the developing world still puzzles and fascinates. In Latin America, attempts to construct resilient democracies have been as pervasive as reversals have been cruel. This book is based on a wealth of original historical documents and contemporary interviews with prominent political actors and analyses five centuries of political history in these paradigmatic cases of outstanding democratic success and abysmal failure. It shows that while factors highlighted by standard explanations matter, it is political culture that configures economic development, institutional choices and political pacts in ways that directly affect both democracy's chances and its quality. But it also claims that political culture is a dynamic combination of rational and normative imperatives that define actors' views of the permissible, shape their sense of realism, structure political struggles and legitimate the resulting distribution of power.