Rational choice

What is rational choice theory?

An approach that explains political behaviour as the result of individuals making calculated decisions to maximise their utility given various constraints

What is its:

• Ontology

• Epistemology

• Methodology

1. Foundationalist

2. Positivist

3. Qualitative & quantitative

What are the 2 main assumptions of rational choice theory?

1. Instrumental rationality

2. Self-interest

= assumes that people can be relied upon to act in a way that secures their goals & reflects their self interest (realist perspective)

Define instrumental rationality

Instrumental rationality in rational choice theory in the principle that actors select the optimal means to achieve their predetermined goals.

Assumes that individuals have stable preferences & choose actions that maximise expected utility given the information they possess.

Define self interest

Self-interest is the principle that individuals will make decisions to maximise their own benefit or satisfy their own preferences. in political science, it assumes actors pursue outcomes that best serve their personal goals (power, influence, material gain) guiding choices within political institutions & processes

Define contextual constraints & state what their shape

Contextual constrains refer to the external conditions (laws, institutional rules, social norms, limited resources, imperfect information) that restrict the set of choices available to actors.

= shapes incentives

Incentives are the rewards, benefits or penalties that shape individuals motivation to choose one action over another

• but can make people behave unexpectedly

Give two examples of actors acting in self-interested & rational manner

1. Government leaders in competitive democracies emphasize their past achievements in campaign to secure votes

2. Companies lobby governments to increase subsidies in situations of weak lobbying transparency rules

Why is analysing political behaviour based on rationality & self interest beneficial?

It helps predict, explain, & improve political processes & outcomes

Outline the methods

Rational choice theorists think like economists:

• thinking deductively

• build economic models to work out incentives

Who uses rational choice as an approach to political science?

Economies

• Notion of humans as rational beings is very old

Define methodological individualism

Approach of explaining political or social outcomes by analysing the behaviour & decisions of individuals

What can rational behaviour of individuals lead to? Give 2 examples

Sub-optimal group outcomes

1. During economic crisis, the rational behaviour of individuals to reduce consumption can cause even deeper recession

2. In a dictatorship, the desirable societal goals is to remove the dictator by public protests, but it is irrational to be the individual to make the first move

Define collective action problem

No one has the incentive to act in a way which would be best for everyone to act

• Individuals perceive their own efforts as having little effort on the rest of the group

Define free-riding

Individuals have incentives not to invest efforts to contribute to a common good in the hope that the common good will be provided by the contribution from others

If too many people free ride, there is no group benefit

• Marcus Olson = larger & heterogeneous groups are particularly vulnerable to free-riding

• Prisoner’s dilemma (tragedy of the commons)

Define game theory

Strategic interactions among self-interested & rational actors

• Prisoners dilemma = self-interested, rational actors choose strategies that lead to worse outcomes for both parties than if they had cooperated

• Tragedy of the commons = individuals, acting on self-interest, overuse a shared resource, leading to its depletion

What are the 3 broad categories of groups in rational choice theory

1. Privileged groups = one person is willing to pay the full cost by providing the good alone

2. Intermediate = no individual is willing to pay for the collective good alone but each individual contributes

3. Latent = no individual action, so no collective good produced

Outline the two types of rational choice application

1. Studies that primarily seek to explain the behaviour by focusing on the interplay between incentives & the utility-maximising behaviour

2. Studies that focus on the institutional context & how it can be improved to affect incentives & thus behaviour

Give an example of a study that explains behaviour

• Armed conflict

  • Higher female ratio leads to men assigning lower value to family life = less child marriage

• Armed conflict with sexual violence

  • Pressure to protect girls

  • Marriage as an economic, & social survival war instrument to protect them from sexual violence & reduce risk of dishonour = more child marriage

Outline the 6 criticisms of rational choice theory briefly

1. People are not rational

2. People are not selfish

3. Ignores individual agency & ideas

4. Poor empirical record

5. Too static focus on equilibrium

6. A political project

Explain people are not rational as a criticism

• They don’t always know what the consequence of their action will be

• Operating in a world of limited information & radical uncertainty

• People can behave irrationally

  • not accurate predictor

Explain people are not selfish as a criticism

• People also act on fairness & justice

  • voting

• Activists risk their lives & careers for justice

  • e.g. ultimatum game

Explain ignores individual agency & ideas as a criticism

• Agents don’t always act in the same way when in the same situation

• Recognise structure & agency by structuring incentives

• Believe that same groups with fixed self-interest goals will make the same choices as other groups

• People have different normative ideas about behaviour

• People have different empirical ideas about how the world works

Explain poor empirical record as a criticism

• Explanations have not been tested

• If they were tested —> either failed or classed as banal

Explain too statis focus on equilibrium as a criticism

• Equilibrium = no individual has reasons to change their behaviour (e.g. both prisoners confess)

• The world & political systems demonstrate non-equilibrium

  • Changing voter preference, changing understandings, agenda instability, rapid party turnover, new movements

• Debate that interesting economic outcomes arise from unexpected changes

Explain a political project as a criticism

• Rational choice theory as a political project that uses the assumption of self-interest to revere competitive market &denigrate government

  • e.g. institutions as efficient mechanisms —> treating citizens like consumers and democracy like a market place

• It is embedded in national values

  • downplays class politics ideology, nationalism, social movements…

How to improve rational choice theory

• Insights from rational choice theory are useful but especially when combined with perspectives that account for the (dynamic) context & the role of both self-interested & social norms

• Adding additional layers to models

• Relaxing assumptions that people are entirely self-interested or completely rational

• Most successful theories are that people have mixed motives & operate in an uncertain world