Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-7cvxr Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T21:00:33.349Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Rational Choice Approach to Politics: A Challenge to Democratic Theory

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 August 2009

Mark P. Petracca
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

In just three decades rational choice theory has emerged as one of the most active, influential, and ambitious subfields in the discipline of political science. Rational choice theory contends that political behavior is best explained through the application of its supposedly “value-neutral” assumptions which posit man as a self-interested, purposeful, maximizing being. Through the logic of methodological individualism, assumptions about human nature are treated as empirical discoveries. My central argument is that by assuming that self-interest is an empirically established component of human nature, rational choice theory supports and perpetuates a political life which is antithetical to important tenets of normative democratic theory. Rational choice theory offers an incoherent account of democratic citizenship and produces a political system which shows a constant biased against political change and pursuit of the public interest. This article concludes by discussing the merits of democratic deliberation for achieving these transformative ends.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Review of Politics , Volume 53 , Issue 2 , Spring 1991 , pp. 289 - 319
Copyright
Copyright © University of Notre Dame 1991

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

I would like to thank Kristen Renwick Monroe for encouraging me to turn my thoughts on this topic into a suitable written presentation and for her many substantive comments on earlier versions of this paper. It was also a pleasure to have the wise counsel of Benjamin I. Page, David Easton, and Gabriel Almond at various stages of this paper as well as the research assistance of Catheryn K. Markline. The comments and suggestions of three anonymous reviewers are also greatly appreciated.

1. For the purposes of this article rational choice includes and refers to those approaches to the study of political life influenced by the economic model of man captured under the various headings of public choice, social choice, and collective choice.

2. Three new edited volumes are particularly rich sources of such omissions and suggested modifications. See Monroe, Kristen Renwick, ed., The Economic Approach to Politics: A Reexamination of the Theory of Rational Action (New York: Scott-Foresman/Harper and Row-Collins, 1991);Google ScholarMansbridge, Jane J., ed., Beyond Self-interest (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990);Google Scholar and Cook, Karen Schweers and Levi, Margaret, eds., The Limits of Rationality (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990).CrossRefGoogle Scholar The list of omissions is easily expanded by considering the rigorous attacks on rational choice theory presented variously by Ball, Terence, “The Economic Reconstruction of Democratic Discourse,” in Transforming Political Discourse, ed. Ball, Terence (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1988);Google ScholarBluhm, William T., “Liberalism as the Aggregation of Individual Preferences: Problems of Coherence and Rationality in Social Choice,” in The Crisis of Liberal Democracy: A Straussian Perspective, ed. Deutsch, Kenneth L. and Soffer, Walter (Albany, NY: State University of New York at Albany Press, 1987);Google ScholarHindess, Barry, Choice, Rationality and Social Choice (London: UnwinHyman, 1988);Google ScholarMacIntyre, Alasdair C., Whose Justice? Which Rationality? (South Bend, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1988);Google ScholarMacpherson, C. B., Democratic Theory: Essays in Retrieval (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1973);Google ScholarMacpherson, C. B., The Life and Times of Liberal Democracy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1977);Google ScholarPlamenatz, John, Democracy and Illusion (London: Longman, 1973);Google ScholarRicci, David M., The Tragedy of Political Science (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1984);Google ScholarSelf, Peter, Politica Theories of Modem Government (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1985);Google ScholarSimon, Herbert, “Human Nature in Politics: The Dialogue of Psychology with Political Science,” American Political Science Review 79 (06 1985): 293–304;CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Slote, Michael, Beyond Optimizing (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1989).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

3. See Ordeshook, Peter C., Game Theory and Political Theory (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986), p. ixCrossRefGoogle Scholar; Downs, Anthony, An Economic Theory of Democracy (New York: Harper and Row, 1957Google Scholar); Black, Duncan, Theory of Committees and Elections (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1958)Google Scholar; Riker, William H., The Theory of Political Coalitions (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1962)Google Scholar; and Buchanan, James M. and Tullock, Gordon, The Calculus of Consent (Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan, 1962)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. This claim is juxtaposed to the conventional wisdom of political philosophers that “modern political philosophy” or “modern political thought” begins in the 1500s with the writings of Machiavelli. See Strauss, Leo, What Is Political Philosophy? (Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1973)Google Scholar, and Strauss, Leo, Natural Right and History (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1953)Google Scholar; on the “new political science,” see Strauss, Leo, The Political Philosophy of Hobbes (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1952)Google Scholar. A good summary of the Straussian perspective is provided by Tarcov, Nathan and Pangle, Thomas, “Epilogue,” in History of Political Philosophy, ed. Strauss, Leo and Cropsey, Joseph (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987).Google Scholar

4. Becker, Gary S., The Economic Approach to Human Behavior (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1976), p. 8.Google Scholar

5. Posner, Richard A., The Economics of Justice (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1983), pp. 1 and 3.Google Scholar

6. Olson, Mancur Jr., The Rise and Decline of Nations (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1982), p. ix.Google Scholar

7. Buchanan, James M., “Politics Without Romance: A Study of Positive Public Choice Theory and Its Normative Implications,” in The Theory of Public Choice — II, ed. Buchanan, James M. and Tollison, Robert D. (Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 1984), pp. 20–21.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

8. Buchanan, James M., “Constitutional Restrictions on the Power of Government,” in Buchanan and Tollison, Theory of Public Choice — II, p. 442.Google Scholar

9. For further elaborations on the conservative policy recommendations of the so-called Virginia School of public choice, see Mitchell, William C., “Virginia, Rochester, and Bloomington: Twenty-five Years of Public Choice and Political Science,” Public Choice 56 (1988): 101–119.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

10. Abrams, Robert, Foundations of Political Analysis: An Introduction to the Theory of Collective Choice (New York: Columbia University Press, 1980), p. 1.Google Scholar Cf. Mitchell, , “Virginia, Rochester, and Bloomington,” p. 115.Google Scholar

11. According to Popper, Karl R., “The task of social theory is to construct and to analyze our sociological models carefully in descriptive or nominalist terms, that is to say, in terms of individuals, of their attitudes, expectations, relations, etc. — a postulate which may be called ‘methodological individualism'” (The Poverty of Historicism [New York: Harper and Row, 1957], p. 157).Google Scholar Popper is probably the best single source on this approach to social theory. However, like so many great innovators he is much less certain about the virtues of deductive reasoning than contemporary theorists who appear quite unfamiliar with the subtle nature of Popper's analysis.

12. See Hindess, , Choice, Rationality and Social Choice, p. 96.Google Scholar

13. See Buchanan, and Tullock, , Calculus of Consent, p. 1.Google Scholar

14. See Ordeshook, , Game Theory and Political Theory, p. 1.Google Scholar

15. See Hindess, , Choice, Rationality and Social Choice, pp. 36–39.Google Scholar

16. See Bluhm, “Liberalism as the Aggregation of Individual Preferences”; Strauss, Political Philosophy of Hobbes; Strauss, What Is Political Philosophy?; and Bloom, Allan, “Political Science and the Undergraduate,” in Teaching Political Science: The Professor and the Polity, ed. Dyke, Vernon Van (Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Humanities Press, 1977).Google Scholar

17. These examples are presented to counter the claims of rational choice theorists that the theory has moved away from the economic man model of human nature postulated by micro-economics. These citations evidence the rather consistent attention given to the motive of self-interest throughout the history of rational choice theory.

18. David Hume is quoted in Collini, Stefan, Winch, Donald, and Burrow, John, That Noble Science of Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984), p. 30.Google Scholar

19. Smith, Adam, The Wealth of Nations, ed. Cannon, Edwin (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1976), p. 18.Google Scholar

20. Downs, , Economic Theory of Democracy, p. 27.Google Scholar

21. Ibid., p. 28.

22. Buchanan, and Tullock, , Calculus of Consent, pp. 25 and 30.Google Scholar

23. Riker, , Theory of Political Coalitions, p. 22.Google Scholar

24. Arrow, Kenneth J., Social Choice and Individual Values, 2nd ed. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1963), p. 3.Google Scholar

25. Olson, Mancur Jr., The Logic of Collective Action (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1965), p. 2.Google Scholar

26. Riker, William H. and Ordeshook, Peter C., An Introduction to Positive Political Theory (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1973), p. 10.Google Scholar

27. Fiorina, Morris P., “Formal Models in Political Science,” in Theory-Building and Data Analysis in the Social Sciences, ed. Asher, Herbert, Weisberg, Herbert F., Kessel, John H., and Shively, W. Phillips (Knoxville, TN: University of Tennessee Press, 1984), p. 84.Google Scholar

28. Mueller, Dennis C., “Public Choice: A Survey,” in Buchanan and Tollison, Theory of Public Choice — II, p. 23.Google Scholar

29. Buchanan, , “Politics Without Romance,” p. 13.Google Scholar

30. Brams, Steven J., Rational Politics (Washington, D.C.: Congressional Quarterly Press, 1985), p. 2.Google Scholar

31. Fiorina, Morris P., Congress: Keystone of the Washington Establishment, 2nd ed. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989), p. 37.Google Scholar

32. See Slote, , Beyond Optimizing, p. 7.Google Scholar

33. See Orren, Gary R., “Beyond Self-interest,” in The Power of Public Ideas, ed. Reich, Robert B. (Cambridge, MA: Ballinger Publishing Co., 1988), pp. 13–29Google Scholar; Kelman, Steven, “Why Public Ideas Matter,” in The Power of Public Ideas, ed. Reich, Robert B. (Cambridge, MA: Ballinger Publishing Co., 1988), pp. 31–53Google Scholar; and Kelman, Steven, Making Public Policy (NY: Basic Books, 1987).Google Scholar

34. Almond, Gabriel A., “Rational Choice Theory and the Social Sciences,” in A Discipline Divided, ed. Almond, Gabriel A. (Beverly Hills, CA: Sage, 1990), p. 135.Google Scholar

35. Buchanan, and Tullock, (Calculus of Consent, p. 3)Google Scholar and Buchanan, (“Politics Without Romance,” p. 13)Google Scholar claim that their analysis does not depend for its elementary logical validity upon any narrowly hedonistic or self-interest motivation of individuals in their behavior in social-choice processes. However, given their great reliance upon the market oriented model of homo economicus, which does rely on the assumption of self-interest, it is difficult to view their work as examples of Almond's “blank tile.” A less suspect source who accepts the blank tile thesis is the sociologist Michael Hector who argues that “There is nothing in rational choice that denies that individuals can pursue altruistic or prosocial ends. Indeed, the theory tends to be mute about the genesis of individual ends.” See Hecter, Michael, Principles of Group Solidarity (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1987), p. 11.Google Scholar While widely conceded that rational choice theory does not have a theory of preference formation, this is different from the claim that rational choice theory is compatible with public spirited or other-regarding motivations by individuals. The possibilities for altruism is treated wisely by Amartya K. Sen, Jon Elster, Christopher Jencks, and Jane J. Mansbridge in Mansbridge, Beyond Self-Interest; and by Monroe et al. in Monroe, Economic Approaches to Politics.

36. See Mayhew, David, Congress: The Electoral Connection (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1974)Google Scholar; and Fiorina, Morris, Congress: Keystone to the Washing Establishment (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1977)Google Scholar. For a critique of Fiorina that argues for a Congress motivated by public spiritedness, see Kelman, , Making Public PolicyGoogle Scholar. Fiorina's response to Kelman may be found in Chapter 11 of Fiorina, , Congress: Keystone to the Washington Establishment, 2nd ed.Google Scholar

37. I thank Benjamin I. Page for bringing this point to my attention.

38. Tullock, Gordon, The Vote Motive (London: Institute for Economic Affairs, 1976).Google Scholar

39. Gordon, Tullock, “Public Choice in Practice,” in Collective Decision Making: Applications From Public Choice Theory, ed. Russell, Clifford S. (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1979), pp. 31 and 33.Google Scholar

40. See Russell, Hardin, Collective Action (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1982), p. 11Google Scholar; and Barry, Brian, Sociologists, Economists, and Democracy (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1978).Google Scholar

41. This discussion draws heavily on Kelman, “Why Public Ideas Matter”; and Kelman, Making Public Policy.

42. See Derthick, Martha and Quirk, Paul L., The Politics of Deregulation (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 1985).Google Scholar

43. Sen, Amartya, “Rational Fools: A Critique of the Behavioral Foundation of Economic Theory,” Philosophy and Public Affairs 6 (1977): 66.Google Scholar Also consider, Barry, Brian, Theories of Justice, p. 285Google Scholar; and Marquand, David, “Preceptoral Politics, Yeoman Democracy and the Enabling State,” Government and Opposition 23 (Summer 1988): 262–65.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

44. Marquand, , “Preceptoral Politics,” p. 266.Google Scholar

45. See Simon, , “Human Nature in Politics,” p. 303Google Scholar; Downs, Anthony, The Evolution of Modern Democracy (Unpublished Manuscript, The Brookings Institution, Washington, D.C., 1988)Google Scholar; and March, James and Olsen, Johan, “The New Institutionalism: Organizational Factors in Political Life,” American Political Science Review 78 (09 1984): 738 and 744.Google Scholar

46. See Brams, , Rational Politics, p. 2Google Scholar; and Laver, Michael, The Politics of Private Desires: The Guide to the Politics of Rational Choice (Middlesex: Penguin, 1981), pp. 1–2.Google Scholar

47. Buchanan, , “Politics Without Romance,” pp. 13–14.Google Scholar

48. There are many competitive and supplemental understandings of human nature. For examples, see Bellah, Robert N. et al. , Habits of the Heart (New York: Harper and Row, 1985)Google Scholar; Diamond, Martin, “Ethics and Politics: The American Way,” in The Moral Foundations of the American Republic, 3rd ed., ed. Horowitz, Robert H. (Charlottesville, VA: University of Virginia Press, 1986), pp. 75–108Google Scholar; Duncan, Graeme, “Human Nature and Radical Democratic Theory,” in Democratic Theory and Practice, ed. Duncan, Graeme (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983): 187–203Google Scholar; Hofstadter, Richard, “The Founding Fathers: An Age of Realism,” in Horowitz, , Moral Foundations of the American Republic, pp. 62–74Google Scholar; Strauss, Leo, The Political Philosophy of HobbesGoogle Scholar, and Strauss, Leo, The Rebirth of Classic Political Rationalism, ed. and intro. Pangle, Thomas L. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1989).Google Scholar

49. In economics, see Collard, David, Altruism and Economy (Oxford: Martin Robinson, 1978)Google Scholar, and Kalt, Joseph and Zupan, Mark A., “Capture and Ideology in the Economic Theory of Politics,” American Economic Review 74 (1984): 279–300Google Scholar; in cognitive psychology, see Kahneman, Daniel, Knetsch, Jack L., and Thaler, Richard, “Fairness and the Assumptions of Economics,” Journal of Business 59 (1986): 285–300CrossRefGoogle Scholar; in political psychology, see Sears, David O. and Funk, Carolyn L., “Self-interest in Americans' Public OpinionsGoogle Scholar,” in Mansbridge, , Beyond Self-Interest, pp. 147–70Google Scholar; and Tyler, Tom R., Why People Obey the Law (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1990)Google Scholar; in sociology, see Etzioni, Amitai, The Moral Dimension: Toward a New Economics (New York: Free Press, 1988)Google Scholar; in sociobiology, see Campbell, Donald, “Rationality and Utility from the Standpoint of Evolutionary Biology,” Journal of Business 59 (1986): 355–63CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Jencks, Christopher, “Varieties of AltruismGoogle Scholar,” in Mansbridge, , Beyond Self-Interest, pp. 54–67Google Scholar; in policy analysis, see Kelman, , Making Public Policy; Kelman, “Why Public Ideas MatterGoogle Scholar”; and Reich, , Power of Public IdeasGoogle Scholar; and in political science, see essays by Monroe, Kristen R. et al. , in Monroe, Economic Approach to Politics.Google Scholar

50. Mansbridge, Jane J., “Self-Interest in the Explanation of Political Life,” in Mansbridge, , Beyond Self-Interest, p. 16.Google Scholar

51. Orren, Gary, “Beyond Self-interest,” p. 24.Google Scholar A more extensive treatment is this issue occurs in Verba, Sidney and Orren, Gary, Equality in America (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1985), chap. 11.Google Scholar

52. Tyler, , Why People Obey The Law, p. 178Google Scholar. See also, Tyler, Tom R., Rasinski, Kenneth A., and Griffin, Eugene, “Alternative Images of the Citizen,” American Psychologist 41 (09, 1986): 970–78.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

53. See Maclntyre, , Whose Justice? Which Rationality?, p. 123Google Scholar; and Berger, Peter L. and Luckmann, Thomas, The Social Construction of Reality (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1967).Google Scholar

54. In what Foucault calls the episteme are the conditions of knowledge within which organized knowledges are structured. This project is carried out by Foucault, primarily in The Order of Things (New York: Vintage Books, 1970).Google Scholar For Foucault, there is no unequivocal sense which may be accorded to the relation of words to things. “Before any definite value can be attached to “words” or “things” it must be recognized that as terms, they will find themselves in a space of knowledge which is always already organized. How words exist, what sort of things there will be, will depend upon that space and its organization. Foucault calls that space an episteme, a configuration of relations which functions as the conditions of existence of particular forms of knowledges and sciences” (see Cousins, Mark and Hussidn, Athar, Michel Foucault [New York: St. Martin's Press, 1984], p. 15).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

55. See Hindess, , Choice, Rationality and Social Choice, p. 4Google Scholar; and Simon, , “Human Nature in Politics,” p. 303.Google Scholar

56. See Scaff, Lawrence A. and Ingram, Helen, “Politics, Policy, and Public Choice: A Critique and Proposal,” Polity 19 (Summer 1987): 613–36.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

57. Allison, Graham T., Essence of Decision (Boston: Little, Brown and Co., 1977), p. 245.Google Scholar

58. Simon, , “Human Nature in Politics,” p. 303.Google Scholar

59. See Diamond, “Ethics and Politics”; and Diggins, John P., The Lost Soul of American Politics (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1986).Google Scholar

60. Hamilton, Alexander, Madison, James, and Jay, John, The Federalist Papers, ed. and intro. Rossiter, Clinton (NY: New American Library, 1961), pp. 80, 79, and 82.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

61. The political effects of teaching rational choice theory to university students is treated provocatively in Steiner, Jurg, “Rational Choice Theories and Politics: A Research Agenda and a Moral Question,” PS: Political Science and Politics 23 (03 1990): 46–50.Google Scholar

62. Hallowell, John H., The Moral Foundations of Democracy (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1954), p. 89.Google Scholar

63. For social, political, and psychological accounts of this phenomena, see Lasch, Christopher, The Culture of Narcissism (New York: W. W. Norton, 1979)Google Scholar; Lasch, Christopher, The Minimal Self (New York: W. W. Norton, 1984)Google Scholar; and Sennet, Richard, The Fall of Public Man (New York: Vintage Books, 1976).Google Scholar

64. Ball, , “The Economic Reconstruction of Democratic Discourse,” p. 124.Google Scholar

65. Farr, James, “Understanding Conceptual Change Politically,” in Political Innovation and Conceptual Change, ed. Ball, Terence, Farr, James, and Hanson, Russell L. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), p. 30.Google Scholar

66. Hanson, Russell L., The Democratic Imagination (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1985), p. 7.Google Scholar

67. Ball, , “The Economic Reconstruction of Democratic Discourse,” p. 142.Google Scholar

68. Barry, Brian, Political Argument (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1965), p. 280.Google Scholar

69. Lockyer, Andrew, “Aristotle: The Politics,” in A Guide to the Political Classics ed. Forsyth, Murray and Keens-soper, Maurice (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988), p. 46.Google Scholar Ironically, in appropriating the notion of “rational action” to the instrumental advance of self-interest, rational choice theorists have done a disservice to the rationalist tradition. As Self, Peter, Political Theories of Modem Government, explains: “This tradition stresses the significant role of reason over the harmonization of interests and the responsible exercise of individual freedom. Stripped of these conditions, the individual is a bundle of desires and tastes, not a person capable of meaningful choice” (p. 190).Google Scholar

70. Keens-soper, Maurice, “Jean-Jacques Rousseau: The Social Contract,” in Forsyth and Keens-Soper, Guide to Political Classics, p. 179.Google Scholar

71. Quoted in Philp, Mark, Paine (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989), p. 69.Google Scholar

72. In various ways these themes were also pursued by the American antifederalists and federalists, despite their many other differences. Following the traditional principles of civic republicanism, the antifederalists believed that civil society should educate, not merely regulate, private conduct so as to move the citizenry away from the pursuit of self-interest, at least in politics. As Cass Sunstein explains, “The federalists' suspicion of civic virtue and their relative skeptical attitude towards the possibility that citizens could escape their self-interest led them to reject the traditional republican structure without rejecting important features of its normative understanding of politics.” The Constitution they created and defended was a synthesis of traditional republicanism and emergent pluralism; created to “bring about public-spirited representation, to provide safeguards in its absence, and to ensure an important measure of popular control.” See Sunstein, Cass R., “Interest Groups in American Public Law,” Stanford Law Review 38 (11 1985): 29–87.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

73. This discussion of Tocqueville relies heavily on Sullivan, William M., Reconstructing Public Philosophy (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1986).Google Scholar

74. Mill, John Stuart, Considerations on Representative Government (Chicago, IL: Henry Regnery Co., 1962, originally published in 1861), p. 71.Google Scholar

75. Through participation, says Mill, the individual “is called upon, while so engaged to weigh interests not his own; to be guided, in case of conflicting claims, by another rule than his private partialities; to apply, at every turn, principles and maxims which have for their reason of existence the common good…. He is made to feel himself one of the public, and whatever is for their benefit to be for his benefit.” Quoted in Ball, , “The Economic Reconstruction of Democratic Discourse,” p. 134.Google Scholar

76. As Terence Ball observes: “The beau ideal of the economic theory is nothing less than Mill's passive character actively searching after his own ‘material or world interest.’ The language of moral development, of character, of education cannot even begin to be translated into the vocabulary of this theory.... That theory, or rather various versions of it, have as their ancestors the very perspective that Mill meant to criticize. If their characters are of the ‘active' type, citizens are not just voters, and voters are not simply consumers; citizenship is not equivalent to consumership. Yet it is this doubtful equivalence that the economic theory of democracy insists upon asserting” (Ball, , “The Economic Reconstruction of Democratic Discourse,” p. 135).Google Scholar

77. Pateman, Carole, Participation and Democratic Theory (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1970), p. 3.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

78. See Schumpeter, Joseph A., Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy (NewYork: Harper Colophon Books, 1975, originally published in 1942).Google Scholar

79. A sample of these new works include:Barber, Benjamin, Strong Democracy (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1985)Google Scholar; Barber, Benjamin, The Conquest of Politics (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1988);Google ScholarBellah et al., Habits of the Heart; Bobbio, Norberto, The Future of Democracy (Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 1987);Google ScholarDahl, Robert A., A Preface to Economic Democracy (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1985);Google ScholarDahl, Robert A., Democracy and Its Critics (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989);Google Scholar Duncan, “Human Nature and Radical Democratic Theory”; Green, Philip, Retrieving Democracy (Totowa, NJ: Rowman and Allanhead, 1985);Google ScholarHarris, David, “Returning the Social to Democracy,” in Duncan, Democratic Theory and Practice, pp. 218–34;Google Scholar essays by Cochrane, Allan, Rowbotham, Sheila, Mclean, Iain and Burnheim, John in New Forms of Democracy, ed. Held, David and Pollitt, Christopher (Beverly Hills, CA: Sage, 1986);Google Scholar Jordon, The Common Good, Macedo, Stephen, Liberal Virtues (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1990);Google ScholarMansbridge, Jane, Beyond Adversary Democracy (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1983);Google ScholarMansbridge, Jane, “A Dynamic Theory of Interest Representation,” in The Politics of Interests: Interest Groups Transformed, ed. Petracca, Mark P. (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1991);Google Scholar Marquand, “Preceptoral Politics”; Miller, David, “The Competitive Model of Democracy,” in Duncan, Democratic Theory and Practice, pp. 133–55;Google ScholarSchmitter, Philippe C. “Corporative Democracy” (Paper presented at the Conference on Politische Institutionen und Interessenvermittlung, Konstanz, Deutchland, 1988);Google Scholar Sullivan, Reconstructing Public Philosophy, and Unger, Roberto M., The Critical Legal Studies Movement (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1983);Google Scholar and Unger, Roberto M., False Necessity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987).Google Scholar

80. Bellah, et al. , Habits of the Heart, p. 211.Google Scholar

81. See Marquand, “Preceptoral Politics”; Green, Retrieving Democracy; Dahl Preface to Economic Democracy; and Dahl, Democracy and Its Critics.

82. Barber, , Conquest of Politics, pp. 210–11.Google Scholar

83. Of course, it is easy to imagine how rational choice theorists might respond to Barber's indictment and vision. Consider the view of Brams, Steven, Rational Politics: “In my opinion, it is better to have an understanding of what values are at stake, which rational-choice models can clarify, than to engage in a fruitless debate over the oft-touted virtues of democracy” (pp. 205–206).Google Scholar Barber's work is far more than a celebration of democracy's virtues, it is a plan for the development of strong democracy informed by a vision of a democratic polity. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said of this prolific rational choice theorist.

84. Some liberal theorists also concede that liberal citizenship is not “simply the pursuit of self-interest, individually or in factional collusion with others of like mind.” See Galston, William A., “Liberal Virtues,” American Political Science Review 82 (12 1988): 1284.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

85. As we see in the next section these inequalities are also helped along by the assumptions and logic of rational choice.

86. MacPherson, C. B., The Real World of Democracy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1966), p. 38.Google Scholar

87. See Sullivan, , Reconstructing Political Philosophy, p. 222.Google Scholar

88. Quoted in Barry, , Sociologists, Economists, and Democracy, p. 176.Google Scholar

89. Kelman, , “Why Public Ideas Matter,” p. 31.Google Scholar

90. Barber, , Conquest of Politics, p. 201.Google Scholar

91. Bluhm, , “Liberalism as the Aggregation of Individual Preferences,” p. 289.Google Scholar

92. Cropsey, Joseph, “On the Relation of Political Science and Economics,” in Political Philosophy and the Issues of Politics, ed. Cropsey, Joseph (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1977), p. 39.Google Scholar

93. I am persuaded by Slote, Beyond Optimizing; Bellah et al., Habits of the Heart; Bluhm, “Liberalism as the Aggregation of Individual Preferences”; and Steiner, “Rational Choice Theories and Politics,” that there is not much of a moral difference between the assumptions of self-interest, maximization, or optimization; all of which create and encourage individuals who are self-regarding and insensitive to the interconnected nature of social existence.

94. Self, , Political Theories of Modern Government, p. 70.Google Scholar

95. This often leads some rational choice theorists to a myopic defense of property rights. Buchanan, for example, gives the “status quo a privileged status, since he maintains that nobody can rightfully be deprived (even by legislation) of what he now has” (see Barry, , Theories of Justice, [Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989], p. 174)Google Scholar.

96. This is a problem which is just beginning to receive attention from friendly critics like Simon and practitioners such as Hector. See Simon, “Human Nature in Politics,” and Hector, Principles of Group Solidarity.

97. Plamenatz, , Democracy and Illusion, p. 150.Google Scholar

98. Ricci, , Tragedy of Political Science, p. 241.Google Scholar

99. See Self, , Political Theories of Modern Government, p. 178Google Scholar; and Ricci, , Tragedy of Political Science, p. 243.Google Scholar

100. See Riker, William H., Liberalism Against Populism (San Francisco: W. H. Freeman and Co., 1982).Google Scholar

101. Ibid., p. 137. Saviors of the public interest around the world — past and present — can take great comfort in Riker's authoritative and scientifically derived conclusion.

102. See Mclean, Iain, Public Choice: An Introduction (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1987), p. 186.Google Scholar

103. Riker, , Liberalism Against Populism, p. 252.Google Scholar For a lively critique of Riker's comparison, see Weale, A., “Social Choice Versus Populism: An Interpretation of Riker's Political Theory,” British Journal of Political Science 14 (1982): 369–85.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

104. As an individual committed to scientific inquiry, Riker's catty and openly evocative discussion of C. B. McPherson, Karl Marx and Marcus Raskin is rather unbecoming. See Riker, , Liberalism Against Populism, pp. 12–16.Google Scholar

105. Buchanan, James M., “From Private Preferences to Public Philosophy: The Development of Public Choice,” in The Economics of Politics, ed. Institute of Economic Affairs (West Sussez: Institute of Economic Affairs, 1978), p. 17.Google Scholar This is also similar to Robert Dahl's notion of “Madisonian democracy.” See Dahl, Preface to Democratic Theory. For different positions on Madison, see Diamon “Ethics and Politics”; and Sunstein, “Interest Groups in American Public Law.”

106. See Ricci, , Tragedy of Political Science, p. 242.Google Scholar

107. Tullock, Gordon, Private Wants, Public Needs (New York: Basic Book 1970), pp. 32–33.Google Scholar

108. Buchanan, and Tullock, (Calculus of Consent, pp. 300–301)Google Scholar believe that one of the more significant doctrinal implications of their theory “lies in its implicit rationalization of a political structure that has never seemed to possess rigorous theoretical foundation.” As is the case for Riker, this political structure is the American experiment in constitutional democracy.

109. Self, , Political Theories of Modern Government, p. 74.Google Scholar

110. See Mitchell, “Virginia, Rochester, and Bloomington: Twenty-five Years of Public Choice and Political Science.”

111. Since threats do exist to the stability of the American regime — from the populists according to Riker and from the Leviathan-state according to Buchanan — rational choice theory has also been invoked to support the political agenda of neoconservatism. While I agree that it would be a mistake to identify rational choice analysis with some version of the New Right, there is a strong and disturbing tendency by rational choice theorists to deploy their “scientific” prowess on behalf of the New Right's political agenda. Examples to illustrate this point are abundant: Riker's support of fiscal reform at the constitutional level, Buchanan and Wagner's attack on deficit spending, Buchanan's defense of property rights; Olson's call for open and competitive markets; and the “Virginians” principled rejection of governmental intervention in matters of regulation and social policy. See Riker, William H., “Constitutional limitations as a self-denying ordinances,” in The Constitution and the Budget, 85–90, ed. Moore, W. S. and Penner, R. G. (Washington, D.C.: American Enterprise Institute, 1980)Google Scholar; Buchanan, James M. and Wagner, Richard E., Democracy in Deficit (New York: Academic Press, 1977)Google Scholar; Buchanan, James M., Freedom in Constitutional Contract (College Station, Texas: Texas A&M Press, 1977)Google Scholar; Olson, Rise and Decline of Nations; and Mitchell, “Virginia, Rochester, and Bloomington: Twenty-five Years of Public Choice and Political Science.”

112. Jordon, , Common Good, p. 16.Google Scholar

113. Jane J. Mansbridge, “Preface,” in Mansbridge, , Beyond Self-interest, p. x.Google Scholar

114. Reich, “Introduction,” in Reich, , Power of Public Ideas, p. 3.Google Scholar

115. Mansbridge, , “Self-interest in the Explanation of Political Life,” p. 9.Google Scholar

116. For example, see Dahl, Preface to Democratic Theory.

117. See Mansbridge, “A Dynamic Theory of Interest Representation.”

118. See Reich, Power of Public Ideas; Mansbridge, “Self-Interest in the Explanation of Political Life”; Mansbridge, “A Dynamic Theory of Interest Representation”; Sunstein, “Interest Groups in American Public Law”; Bessette, Joseph M., “Deliberative Democracy: The Majority Principle in Republica Government,” in How Democratic Is the Constitution? eds., Goldwin, Robert A. and Schambra, William A. (Washington: American Enterprise Institute, 1980), pp. 102–116Google Scholar; and Bessette, Joseph M., “Is Congress a Deliberative Body?” in The United States Congress: Proceedings of the Thomas P. O'Neill Symposium, ed. Hale, Dennis (Chestnut Hill, MA: Boston College, 1982).Google Scholar

119. Sunstein, , “Interest Groups in American Public Law,” pp. 46–47.Google Scholar

120. Sunstein, , “Interest Groups in American Public Law,” pp. 84–85.Google Scholar

121. Mansbridge, , “Self-Interest in the Explanation of Political Life,” p. xii.Google Scholar