The Rational Choice Controversy
Subtitle: Economic Models of Politics Reconsidered
Publisher: Yale University Press
Published: September 25, 1996
Language: eng
Format: Paperback
Number of pages: 320
ISBN-13: 9780300068214
Subjects: Political science & theory; Social, group or collective psychology; Political Philosophy; Political Theory; Politics / Current Events; Politics/International Relations; History & Theory - General; Political; Philosophy / Political; Methodology; Political science; Rational choice theory
First sentence: Politics has often been portrayed as a preeminent arena of the accidental, the emotional, the ideological, the habitual, and the traditional.
Description: Pathologies of Rational Choice Theory, a book written by Donald Green and Ian Shapiro and published in 1994, excited much controversy among political scientists and promoted a dialogue that was printed in a double issue of the journal Critical Review in 1995. This new book reproduces thirteen essays from that journal written by senior scholars in the field, along with an introduction by the editor of the journal, Jeffrey Friedman, and a rejoinder to the essays by Green and Shapiro.

The scholars - who include John Ferejohn, Morris P. Fiorina, Stanley Kelley, Jr., Robert E. Lane, Peter C. Ordeshook, Norman Schofield, and Kenneth A. Shepsle - criticize, agree with, or build on Green and Shapiro's critique. Together the essays provide an interesting and accessible way of focusing on completing approaches to the study of politics and the social sciences.