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A Mirror of Enlightenment: The Rational Choice Debate

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 August 2009

Joseph V. Brogan
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Extract

Rational choice theory is the prevailing point of view in political science today. It serves as the paradigm by which political behavior is explained and the parameters of research and publication defined. Whether it deserves its exalted status is much debated. Its advocates see it as a victory of science and reason over prejudice and irrationality, and as a major contribution to the “intellectual flourishing” of the discipline (Booth, p. 1). Some critics see it as failed science. Others fear it as successful propaganda. The works reviewed here are representative of this range of assessments. Read individually, each offers a competing image of the role rational choice theory plays in political science. Read together, they constitute a dialogue that tells the story of the contemporary discipline and its relationship to the object of its study.

Type
Review Essay
Information
The Review of Politics , Volume 58 , Issue 4 , Fall 1996 , pp. 793 - 806
Copyright
Copyright © University of Notre Dame 1996

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References

1 Truman, David, “Disillusion and Regeneration: The Quest for a Discipline,” in The American Political Science Review (LIX, 1965), p. 867.Google Scholar

2 Easton, David, “The Current Meaning of Behavioralism,” in Contemporary Political Analysis, ed. Charlesworth, James (New York: The Free Press, 1967), p. 17.Google Scholar

3 Ibid, p. 22.

4 Truman, , “The Implications of Political Behavior Research,” Social Science Research Council, Items, 12, 1951, pp. 37–39Google Scholar. Cited in Dahl, , “The Behavioral Approach in Political Science: Epitaph for a Monument to a Successful Protest,” American Political Science Review (LV, 1961), p. 767.Google Scholar

5 Easton, p. 24.