Principles of Politics
Subtitle: A Rational Choice Theory Guide to Politics and Social Justice
By: Joe Oppenheimer
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Published: 2012
Place of publication: Cambridge, England
Language: eng
ISBN-13: 9781107014886
Subjects: Rational choice theory; POLITICAL SCIENCE / General; Social justice; Political science
Description: "This book presents the rational choice theories of collective action and social choice, applying them to problems of public policy and social justice"--

"Claims of knowledge and of 'principles' regarding political matters, both empirical and moral, have been made over the millennia but never without contention. This book is about some of the empirical and moral generalizations arrived at in what might be called the new political science. The book deals with the findings directly, and how one goes about justifying such claims. It reveals how the quality of the justification determines the quality of the claims. The principle foundations used to develop the arguments or justification are those of rational choice and social justice theories. But given the diversity of claims within the well reasoned philosophical traditions, we need more than reason to establish (or for that matter, except in cases of contradiction, disestablish) claims of knowledge about politics. Empirical findings, especially from experiments, are brought in to evaluate the validity of the claims. The principles discussed improve our understanding of concepts such as social welfare, collective action, altruism, other-regardingness, distributive justice, group interest, and more. The methods employed help us understand what is universal to all of politics. This volume zeros in on these universals with an eye to both the empirical problems of political behavior and some of the normative conundrums such as what constitutes social justice. It identifies some of the main candidates for principles in both categories, and helps the reader to understand how to justify any such candidate"--
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and indexes.
Table of contents: title: Machine generated contents note: Introduction: politics, universals, knowledge claims, and methods; Part I. The Logic of Collective Action: 1. Voluntary contributions and collective action; 2. Going beyond the prisoner dilemma; 3. Collective action applications to and beyond democratic politics; Part II. Collective Choice: 4. Individual to collective choice in one dimensional politics; 5. Individual to collective choice more generally; Part III. Political Institutions and Quality Outcomes: 6. Political necessity and the tethering of leaders; 7. A few institutional pitfalls; Part IV. Social Justice, Choice, and Welfare: 8. The general problem of collective welfare and choice; 9. Voting rules; 10. Social welfare and social justice: a partial integration; Conclusion: 11. Questions and lessons.