Testing rational choice theories of institutional change

2018 ◽  
Vol 30 (4) ◽  
pp. 420-431 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter T. Leeson ◽  
Colin Harris
Keyword(s):  
Institutional Change ◽  
Rational Choice ◽  
Conflict Theory ◽  
Methodological Issues ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Socioeconomic Outcomes ◽  
Rational Choice Theories ◽  
Do So

Having empirically identified institutions as critical determinants of socioeconomic outcomes, social scientists are starting to turn their attention to empirically identifying sources of institutional change. Rational choice scholars offer two theories of such change: conflict theory and cooperation theory. We highlight crucial but easily overlooked methodological issues involved in attempting to evaluate these theories empirically. To do so, we critically examine Coleman and Mwangi’s study of property evolution among Maasai pastoralists in Kajiado, Kenya. Lessons from our examination, we hope, will help this burgeoning area of research proceed productively.

scholarly journals Legal Files and Empires: Form and Materiality of the Benguela District Court Documents

Administory ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 53-70
Author(s):  
Mariana Armond Dias Paes
Keyword(s):  
Primary Sources ◽  
District Court ◽  
Methodological Issues ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Do So

AbstractMuch has been said on the role of judges, legal officials, and courts in the making of colonial regimes. Nevertheless, historiography lacks specific methodological reflections on lawsuits in the Iberian Empires. In order to raise some methodological issues concerning lawsuits as primary sources, I argue that historians could also engage with legal files by looking at instead of just looking through them. In this sense, I seek to establish a dialogue with discussions that anthropologists and social scientists put forward concerning the role of documents as constitutive of bureaucracies and administrative institutions. In order to do so, I will focus on specific aspects of the Benguela District Court collection of legal files.

Second Annual Economics Seminar

1988 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 317-318
Author(s):  
Syed Iqbal Mahdi
Keyword(s):  
Economic System ◽  
Cost Benefit ◽  
The United States ◽  
Director General ◽  
Washington Dc ◽  
Kuala Lumpur ◽  
Methodological Issues ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Temple University ◽  
Islamic Economic

The Second Economics Seminar of the AMSS Economic DisciplineCouncil on Islamic Economics co-sponsored by the International Instituteof Islamic Thought (IIIT) and the Association of Muslim Social Scientists(AMSS) was held Rabi‘ al Akhir 8-10, 1409/November 18-20, 1988, at theIIIT headquarters in Herndon, Virginia. The program chairman for theconference was Dr. Mohammad Safa of Southeastern University, Washington,DC and the Seminar was attended by over fifty (50) people from variousparts of the United States and Canada including academicians, Islamic bankers,and graduate economics students.Following recitations from the Holy Qur’in, the opening sessioncommenced with the welcome addresses of Dr. Taha Jabir Al-Alwani,President, and Dr. AbdulHamid AbuSulayman, Director-General of the ID”,respectively. Dr. Taha emphasized the importance of the implementation ofIslamization of Knowledge in modem social sciences particularly in economics,and the role of IIIT in this process. Dr. Taha also paid tribute to the servicesof Dr. AbuSulayman in building Islamic institutions like the AMSS and theIIIT in their formative years. He prayed for the success of Dr. ’AbuSulaymanin his new assignment as the Rector of the International Islamic Universityin Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.Dr. AbuSulayman then outlined the challenges lying ahead for Muslimeconomists in their efforts to Islamize the science of economics.Conference Program and Papers:The conference program was divided into four sessions. The first sessionwas on “Methodological Issues in Islamic Economics” chaired by Dr. RasoolM. Hashimi of Southern Illinois University. Drs. Syed Iqbal Mahdi of BenedictCollege and Masudul Alam Choudhury of University College of Cape Bretonpresented papers entitled “Methodological Issues in Islamic Economics” and“Cost-Benefit Framework in an Islamic Economic System” respectively. Thelast paper in this session was given by Shamim Siddiqui who is a doctoralcandidate at Temple University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The title ofhis paper was “Savings and Investment in an Islamic Economic System.” ...

Big Decisions: Opting, Converting, Drifting

2006 ◽  
Vol 58 ◽  
pp. 157-172 ◽  
Author(s):  
Edna Ullmann-Margalit
Keyword(s):  
Decision Theory ◽  
Rational Choice ◽  
Practical Reasoning ◽  
Outer Space ◽  
Atomic Level ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Newtonian Physics ◽  
The Social ◽  
Separate Treatment ◽  
The One

I want to focus on some of the limits of decision theory that are of interest to the philosophical concern with practical reasoning and rational choice. These limits should also be of interest to the social-scientists' concern with Rational Choice.Let me start with an analogy. Classical Newtonian physics holds good and valid for middle-sized objects, but not for the phenomena of the very little, micro, sub-atomic level or the very large, macro, outer-space level: different theories, concepts and laws apply there. Similarly, I suggest that we might think of the theory of decisionmaking as relating to middle-sized, ordinary decisions, and to them only. There remain the two extremes, the very ‘small’ decisions on the one hand and the very ‘big’ decisions on the other. These may pose a challenge to the ordinary decision theory and may consequently require a separate treatment.

Institutional Change in the East German Transformation Process: The Role of the State in the Reorganization of Property Rights and the Limits of Institutional Transfer

2000 ◽  
Vol 18 (3) ◽  
pp. 13-47 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gerhard Lehmbruch
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Institutional Change ◽  
Former Soviet Union ◽  
Transformation Process ◽  
West Germany ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Transfer Payments ◽  
Role Of The State ◽  
East German ◽  
Eastern European Countries

German social scientists have often stressed that the East German transformation was a process sui generis that differed strongly from the transformation paths of eastern European countries. This difference was of course mainly due to the integration of the former GDR into the Federal Republic of (West) Germany. Indeed, it is commonly assumed that the wholesale transfer of West German institutions left little room for the endogenous paths of transformation observed in eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. The unintended outcome of this strategy of “exogenous” institutional change was a transformation crisis with the effect of a profound external shock. To be sure, this shock was mitigated by the simultaneous introduction of the West German “social net,” accompanied by massive transfer payments. But many of the dire predictions made by skeptical observers in 1990 have indeed come true.

Why social scientists still need phenomenology

Thesis Eleven ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 072551362110643
Author(s):  
Christopher Houston
Keyword(s):  
Social Scientist ◽  
Pierre Bourdieu ◽  
Cultural Analysis ◽  
Natural Attitude ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
The Social ◽  
The World ◽  
Suspension Of Disbelief ◽  
Do So ◽  
Critical Science

Pierre Bourdieu famously dismissed phenomenology as offering anything useful to a critical science of society – even as he drew heavily upon its themes in his own work. This paper makes a case for why Bourdieu’s judgement should not be the last word on phenomenology. To do so it first reanimates phenomenology’s evocative language and concepts to illustrate their continuing centrality to social scientists’ ambitions to apprehend human engagement with the world. Part II shows how two crucial insights of phenomenology, its discovery of both the natural attitude and of the phenomenological epoche, allow an account of perception properly responsive to its intertwined personal and collective aspects. Contra Bourdieu, the paper’s third section asserts that phenomenology’s substantive socio-cultural analysis simultaneously entails methodological consequences for the social scientist, reversing their suspension of disbelief vis-à-vis the life-worlds of interlocutors and inaugurating the suspension of belief vis-à-vis their own natural attitudes.

The Millennial/Gen Z Leftists Are Emerging: Are Sociologists Ready for Them?

2020 ◽  
Vol 63 (3) ◽  
pp. 408-427
Author(s):  
Elaine Bell Kaplan
Keyword(s):  
Social Change ◽  
Gender Inequality ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Race And Gender ◽  
The Status ◽  
And Gender ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
New Generation ◽  
Do So

Sociology is being challenged by the new generation of students and scholars who have another view of society. Millennial/Gen Zs are the most progressive generation since the 1960s. We have had many opportunities to discuss and imagine power, diversity, and social change when we teach them in our classes or attend their campus events. Some Millennial/Gen Z believe, especially those in academia, that social scientists are tied to old theories and ideologies about race and gender, among other inconsistencies. These old ideas do not resonate with their views regarding equity. Millennials are not afraid to challenge the status quo. They do so already by supporting multiple gender and race identities. Several questions come to mind. How do we as sociologists with our sense of history and other issues such as racial and gender inequality help them along the way? Are we ready for this generation? Are they ready for us?

Economics is whatever the comparative advantage of economists is: a comment on Leeson (2020)

2020 ◽  
Vol 16 (4) ◽  
pp. 553-556
Author(s):  
Ryan H. Murphy
Keyword(s):  
Rational Choice ◽  
Comparative Advantage ◽  
Rational Choice Theory ◽  
Choice Theory ◽  
Explanatory Power ◽  
Applied Econometrics ◽  
Theoretical Frameworks ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Comparative Advantages

AbstractLeeson (2020) objects to the conflation of economics with applied econometrics, and argues that economics instead should be thought of as the implications of the assumption that individuals maximize, i.e. rational choice theory. But, narrowly defining economics in terms of method demands that we ignore alternative theoretical frameworks which potentially hold explanatory power about topics thought of as economics, all for the sake of a definition. I suggest that applying rational choice theory and applying econometrics became the comparative advantage for economists relative to other social scientists by accidents of history. These comparative advantages largely persist. It is reasonable to call applications of both rational choice theory and econometrics to topics outside conventional economic topics ‘economics’ simply because these applications remain the comparative advantage of economists.

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