Shepsle Kenneth A. Y Mark S. Boncheck_analyzing Politics. Rationality, Behavior, And Institutions 1u32

Shepsle Kenneth A. y Mark S. Boncheck. 1997. Analyzing Politics. Rationality, Behavior, and Institutions. New York: Norton Press. IT ISN’T ROCKET SCIENCE, BUT… _Since the end of the SWW, changes in political studies have been numerous and many splendored. We shall concentrate on two of the most significant shifts of emphasis the shifts from describing to explaining, and from judging to analyzing. Political science at the end of the SWW consisted of detailed contemporary descriptions of political history writing. It was a thick description, which is typically careful, detailed to a fault, and comprehensive, in contrast to “mere” storytelling. If postwar political science is more than storytelling, it is also more than normative handwriting. The evaluative emphasis of postwar political science consisted chiefly of reformist sentiments. In short, the political science that a college student at the end of the SWW have encountered was primarily descriptive and judgmental. It was much less oriented toward explanation and analysis. But it was not until the 1960s that systematic attention began to focus on questions of “why”. This path constitutes significant movement along scientific trajectory. _Political science is not a rocket science, but this emphasis on explanations and analysis moves it closer in form to the physical and natural sciences than was the case in an earlier era. _The main purpose of this book will be especially intent on acquainting you with elementary models. These are stylization meant to approximate in very crude fashion some real situation. Models are purposely stripped-down versions of the real thing. _These stripped-down historical cases come close to transforming a specific model into a theory of something real. A theory, as we plan to use the term, is an embellishment of a model in which features that are somewhat vague and abstract in the model are made more concrete and specific in the theory. A theory, then, is a specialized elaboration of a model intended for a specific application. _We believe that an understanding and application of the concepts contained in this book will help you to predict and explain political events.

_For the purposes of our discussion, we will take politics to be utterly indistinguishable from the phenomena of group life generally. RATIONALITY: THE MODEL OF CHOICE _The people we model are neither all-knowing nor worldly-wise; they are ordinary folks. As such they have wants and beliefs, both of which affect their behavior. _Individual wants, which we refer to as preferences, can be inspired by any number of different sources. We do not pretend to know why people want what they want. For us, preferences are one of the givens of a situation and, for purposes of analysis, we assume that they don’t change much in the short run. In short, we take people, as we find them. _The world of preferences and priorities is an interior world. Indeed, because a person does not wear her preferences on her forehead, and sometimes, for subtle reasons, may not be all that she seems, we often have to make assumptions about her preferences. Completing this exterior world is an external environment in which people find themselves. This environment is filled with uncertainty. _We assume they have a behavioral portfolio available as well. If each instrument leads to some distinct outcome, then the job of the rational persona is simple: choose the instrument that leads to the outcome preferred the most. However, the effectiveness of behavioral instruments for the things an individual wants is only imperfectly known. We describe the hunches an individual has concerning the efficacy of a given instrument or behavior for obtaining something he or she wants as that person’s beliefs. Beliefs connect instruments to outcomes. Acting in accord both with one’s preferences and one’s beliefs is called instrumental rationality. _We can only note in ing that the rational choice approach is a form of methodological individualism. The individual is taken as the basic unit of analysis. _The modern theory of economics is a grands intellectual edifice precisely because it has succeeded in constructing explanations logically, rigorously, and in empirically meaningful ways. Is it possible, in a manner precisely analogous to what has occurred in economics, to create a science of politics? _”Mr. I” is rational in the sense that his preferences have coherence and that his ultimate choice bears a logical relationship to his preferences.

Pi is i’s strict preference relation and Ii is i’s indifference relation. An object is rational choice if no other available object is better according to the chooser’s preferences. What we are seeking, in effect, are properties of preferences relations that allow the chooser to order the alternatives in of preference. Property 1: Comparability (completeness). The alternatives are comparable if, for any pair of them, the chooser either prefers the first to the second, the second to the firs, or is indifferent between them. Property 2: Transitivity: The strict preference relation is said to be transitive of, for any three possible alternatives, if x Pi y and y Pi z then x Pi z _In fact, not all relations are complete or transitive (or both). _We must content ourselves with the knowledge that, like other sciences, simplifying assumptions are necessary in order to make progress. _The assumption of comparability and transitivity yield an “ordering principle” –they permit an individual to take a set of objects and place them in an order, from highest to lowest, that reflects personal tastes and values. Rationality is associated with both this capacity to order and an aptitude to choose from the top of the order. _A belief is a probability statement relating the effectiveness of a specific action (or instrument) for various outcomes. When there is certainty, rational behavior is pretty apparent: simply pick the action or instrument that leads to your top-ranked alternative. When beliefs about action-outcome relationships are more complex, the principle of rational behavior requires more explanation. _Making a decision under conditions of risk involves choosing among alternatives lotteries. A rational choice entails choosing the “best” lottery. The rule of rational choice is known as the Principle of Expected Utility. _The cause-and-effect relationship between actions and outcomes may be well defined (certainty), probabilistic (risk), or only crudely known (uncertainty).