These are my complete notes from the Rational Choice Theory lectures taught in the second year of IRO. If there is anything about the exam, this is about the May 2021 exam.
Lecture 1 – Introduction
Political science at the end of WWII
• Thick descriptions
• Normative components: Many judgements about how they worked, and how the world
should work: Marxism, Liberalism, Capitalism, and many other -isms
• Political science was descriptive and judgemental rather than analytical
How could we evaluate the merits of these claims?
• Judgements and speculation are subjective!
• Could we move toward a more objective approach?
• Attention: Subjectivity and objectivity of research is not zero-one, black and white! It
is a continuum (fuzzy theory)!
• Even "hard rational choice" social science models developed by humans whose life
and socialization experiences affect their research!
• In his view, there is not a pure objective social science research!
o More of a continuum
• However, some prefer to minimize the influence of subjective factors by scientific and
standardized approaches as well as peer review process!
• “Logical positivism” is an answer to this
Logical positivism
• Vienna circle is one of the main reasons that you have to take statistics and rational
choice theory as a political scientist
• In early 20th century, a group of philosophers and scientists, chaired by Moritz Schlick,
promoted the idea of logical positivism/empiricism:
o Only prepositions verified through direct observation or logical proof have
meaning
o Can be both qualitative and quantitative
Economics: The imperial science
• Economists were among the first groups who internalized and started applying the
logical positivism in social sciences
o Became mainstream scholars in the research
• Since economists apply their methods to answer a variety of social issues, they could
impact scientific research in different fields.
o They want to apply models to everything
• In addition to logical positivism, economists presented the application of rational
choice theory to the modern social issues.
The success of logical empiricism
• Economics
o Inflation
Used RC and empirical research to show that dependence on the CB to
control inflation
o To some extent: unemployment/development/growth
Economic growth: short term (business cycles and unemployment) and
long term (development)
o To some extent: structural problems in labour markets such as ethnic and
discrimination (For example, Heckman Selection model)
1
, Heckmann wanted to measure discrimination between men and women
in labour market
o Big failure: in his opinion inequality!
• Political science: Do you know any?
Resistance against rational choice theory
• In 1994, Green and Shapiro published “Pathologies of Rational Choice Theory: A
Critique of Applications in Political Science”
o “The discrepancy between the faith that practitioners place in rational choice
theory and its failure to deliver empirically warrants closer inspection of
rational choice theorizing as a scientific enterprise” (Green and Shapiro 1994:
6-7).
o In 2000, the Perestroika Movement started with an email by Mr. Perestroika to
the editors of the American Political Science Review.
“dismantling of the Orwellian system that we have in APSA”
Too much focus on RC and empiricism
American Political Science Association (APSA)
Responses to criticism
• M. Fiorina: "working in the vineyards of political science for 25 years, [and] the bulk
of that work is empirical. How could it have prospered otherwise?"
• K. Shepsle: "Don't let go of something until you have something else to hold on to."
o Stick to RC and empiricism until we have a better alternative
• Do you see anything problematic in Fiorina and Shepsle arguments?
o There are different alternatives
o Empiricism =/Rational Choice Theory (RCT)̸=Formal(mathematical) modeling
(get back to this later!)
They are related and economists started using them all together, but
they are not identical
You can use mathematics for sth irrational not automatically a truth
if you use mathematics
o Behavioural economics is offered to complement RCT! Herbert Alexander
Simon won Economics Nobel Prize for “Bounded rationality, satisficing,
preferential attachment” in 1978!
Tributes
• David Hume (1711-1776)
• Scottish philosopher
• Among the enlightenment philosophers who discussed utilitarianism and logical
positivism.
Tributes
• Ibn Khaldun (1332-1406)
• Tunisian philosopher and social scientist (process tracing)
• His book, Muqaddimah, is on sociology, demography, and cultural history
• He argues good governance and tries to offer ethnographical analysis!
• Didn’t necessarily come from Western countries
Tributes
• Ludwig Josef Johann Wittgenstein (1889-1951)
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, • Austrian philosopher
• “Nothing is so difficult as not deceiving oneself." Ludwig Wittgenstein in Culture and
Value
• He doesn’t believe in RC cannot have impartial judgement of activities
Formalism
• Hilbert, Russell, and Wittgenstein were among first mathematician-philosophers
argued formalism.
o The Minister of Education Nazis, Bernhard Rust asked "the Mathematical
Institute really suffered so much because of the departure of the Jews". Hilbert
replied, "Suffered? It doesn't exist any longer!"
• Wittgenstein in Tractatus argues:
"[m]athematics is a method of logic"" (6.234); "[t]he logic of the world, which is
shown in tautologies by the propositions of logic, is shown in equations by
mathematics"(6.22).
• Logical statement Mathematical equation! What do you think about this?
o Logical statement mathematical equation
you should be able to write a logical statement into a mathematical equation
and the other way around
o Mathematical equation logical statement
Formal modelling
• The convergence of three views led to what we know today as formal modelling in
social sciences, especially economics and political science:
o Logical positivism/empiricism
o Mathematical logic
o Rational choice
• Nowadays, we do not see these three always together in political science or economics
research.
o Two types of rational choice models:
Soft rational choice: without mathematical formalism
use written logics
Hard rational choice: with mathematical formalism
o The purpose of rational choice theory is to familiarize you with rational choice
models, with an emphasize on "hard rational choice", i.e. mathematical
modelling.
Which group do you belong?
• Your attitude toward rational choice belong to one of these three general groups:
o You are a positivist and find mathematical logic for developing social science
interesting!
o You are pessimist about the benefits and values of positivism and
mathematical logic!
o You are undecided!
Frame title
• Week 1: Introduction
• Week 2: Utility function and expected utility theory
• Week 3 & 4: Theories of games and strategic interactions
• Week 5: Market (individualism) failure and its solutions
3
, • Week 6: Aggregating preferences and problems it raises
• Week 7: Conclusion
Today’s plan
• Purposefulness
• Choice set
• Preference relation
• The formal definition of rational choice
Rational choice in political science
• He will define rational choice formally later!
• But, roughly speaking, Rational Choice Theory focuses on the determinants of the
individual (agent) choices (methodological individualism)
o Can also be households as agents
• Political scientist and IR scholars extended this concept to the determinants of group
and country
o IR realism and IR liberalism
o Charles Tilly’s "From Mobilization to Revolution" group is rational
o This is not totally wrong!
o Under some assumptions or for some questions, this works very well!
o But, this is not always the case! Will come back to this later in Social Choice
Theory
Purposefulness
• According to Rational Choice Theory, individual agents pursue their private interests
(egoism vs. altruism).
o Criticism: why do people donate out of altruism?
o Reaction: donating for your ego
• Austrian economists replace this with Praxeology, i.e., humans engage in purposeful
behaviour.
• Therefore, the choices that agents/individuals make help them to achieve their goals
o A consumer: Maximizes his/her consumption flow
o A firm: Maximizes its profit
o A country: Maximize its political power and wealth
o A political leader: Political survival
o A democratic movement: ?
o An nationalist movement: ?
• You want to achieve sth
Set of possible alternatives
• A decision-maker chooses from a set of possible alternatives; that is why, it is called
choice set, too.
• (Example) The alternatives for you after graduation:
o Go to graduate school for MA or PhD
o Do an internship
o Travel around the world
o Start your start-up
• (Example) The alternatives for a nationalist-seperatist movement
o Adopt nonviolent resistance
o Resort to violent resistance
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