scholarly journals Rational Choice Theory and the Paradox of Not Voting

2004 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 99-112 ◽  
Author(s):  
Timothy J Feddersen
Keyword(s):  
Rational Choice ◽  
Rational Choice Theory ◽  
Choice Theory ◽  
Choice Model ◽  
Canonical Model ◽  
Voter Behavior ◽  
Rational Choice Model ◽  
Group Members ◽  
Game Theoretic ◽  
Ethical Agent

Given the extensive evidence of apparently strategic voter behavior, it is unsettling that there is not a canonical rational choice model of voting in elections with costs to vote. But while a canonical model does not yet exist, the literature appears to be converging toward a “group-based” model of turnout, in which group members participate in elections either because they are directly coordinated and rewarded by leaders as in “mobilization” models or because they believe themselves to be ethically obliged to act in a manner that is consistent with the group's interest as in “ethical agent” models. To appreciate the development of group-based models, it will be useful to begin with a discussion of the decision-theoretic literature on voting, with a focus on the paradox of not voting. Then we will move to the game-theoretic and group-based models of voting. A conclusion highlights some of the problems that group-based models of voting must address.

Killing Civilians as an Inferior Input in a Rational Choice Model of Genocide and Mass Killing

2014 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 327-346 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charles H. Anderton
Keyword(s):  
Risk Factors ◽  
Rational Choice ◽  
Low Income ◽  
Rational Choice Theory ◽  
Choice Theory ◽  
Choice Model ◽  
Optimal Choice ◽  
Mass Killing ◽  
Rational Choice Model ◽  
Violence Against Civilians

AbstractThis article presents a rational choice model of a regime’s incentive to allocate resources to fighting rebels and killing civilians when facing an internal threat to its political or territorial control. Assuming that intentional violence against civilians is an inferior input and fighting rebels is subject to increasing marginal returns, three weak state conditions – anocracy, new state status, and low income – increase civilian atrocities within the model. Also, two other risk factors for mass atrocities – discrimination and Cold War conditions – can be seen as “price reducers” for killing civilians, thus increasing the quantity demanded for civilian atrocities in the model. The modeling exercises show how intentional violence against civilians can be viewed through an economic lens of optimal choice and how rational choice theory provides a parsimonious way to theorize and generate empirically testable hypotheses about risk factors for genocide and mass killing.

Rational Choice Theory in Political Decision Making

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Scott H. Ainsworth
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Social Choice ◽  
Rational Choice ◽  
Rational Choice Theory ◽  
Choice Theory ◽  
Choice Models ◽  
Personal Identification ◽  
Group Level ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
Game Theoretic

Rational choice theory builds from a very simple foundation. To wit: individuals are presumed to pursue goal-oriented behavior stemming from rational preferences. Rational choice theory benefits from the very precise formulations of its assumptions. Individual-level rationality is generally defined as having complete and transitive preferences. Both completeness and transitivity have precise, formal definitions. From complete and transitive preferences, one can develop utility function presentations reflecting those preferences. Utility functions have the advantage of establishing a measure and allowing one to assess attitudes toward risk. That is, utility functions can reflect risk acceptance, risk neutrality, or risk aversion. Although some rational choice theorists focus on individual-level decision making, most rational choice theorists consider the ways in which individuals’ decisions are aggregated into some sort of social outcome or social preference order. The aggregation of individuals’ preferences occurs in both social choice and game theoretic models. Arrow’s theorem is the best-known result in social choice theory. Arrow showed that the rationality of individuals’ preferences could not be readily preserved at the group level when those individuals’ preferences were aggregated. That is, individual-level rationality does not ensure group-level rationality. Put slightly differently, irrationality at the group level cannot impugn rationality at the individual level. Other examples highlighting the difficulty of aggregating individuals’ preferences into a collective outcome abound. For instance, game theoretic presentations of the collective action problem highlight how individually rational decisions can lead to suboptimal outcomes. Rational choice models have been used to model interactions in a wide array of political institutions. Rational choice models have been developed to tackle some of the most challenging concepts in the social sciences, even in areas long thought impenetrable to rational choice theorizing. For instance, concepts such as ideology or personal identification have typically been used as preestablished descriptors. In contrast to treating those concepts as extant descriptors, rational choice theorists have modeled the endogenous development of ideologies and personal identification. Given the complexity of social phenomena, the relative parsimony and the clarity of rational choice models can be particularly helpful. The usefulness of rational choice models stems from their parsimony and their applicability to a wide range of settings.

The Decision to Vote or to Abstain

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elisabeth Gidengil
Keyword(s):  
Rational Choice ◽  
Voter Turnout ◽  
Rational Choice Theory ◽  
Census Data ◽  
Choice Theory ◽  
Choice Model ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
Civic Duty ◽  
Parsimonious Model

Why voters turn out on Election Day has eluded a straightforward explanation. Rational choice theorists have proposed a parsimonious model, but its logical implication is that hardly anyone would vote since their one vote is unlikely to determine the election outcome. Attempts to save the rational choice model incorporate factors like the expressive benefits of voting, yet these modifications seem to be at odds with core assumptions of rational choice theory. Still, some people do weigh the expected costs and benefits of voting and take account of the closeness of the election when deciding whether or not to vote. Many more, though, vote out of a sense of civic duty. In contrast to the calculus of voting model, the civic voluntarism model focuses on the role of resources, political engagement, and to a lesser extent, recruitment in encouraging people to vote. It pays particular attention to the sources of these factors and traces complex paths among them. There are many other theories of why people vote in elections. Intergenerational transmission and education play central roles in the civic voluntarism models. Studies that link official voting records with census data provide persuasive evidence of the influence of parental turnout. Education is one of the best individual-level predictors of voter turnout, but critics charge that it is simply a proxy for pre-adult experiences within the home. Studies using equally sophisticated designs that mimic the logic of controlled experiments have reached contradictory conclusions about the association between education and turnout. Some of the most innovative work on voter turnout is exploring the role of genetic influences and personality traits, both of which have an element of heritability. This work is in its infancy, but it is likely that many genes shape the predisposition to vote and that they interact in complex ways with environmental influences. Few clear patterns have emerged in the association between personality and turnout. Finally, scholars are beginning to recognize the importance of exploring the connection between health and turnout.

Revisiting the role of process incentives as a determinant of university students’ protest

2012 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 225-253
Author(s):  
Elias Dinas ◽  
Kostas Gemenis
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Collective Action ◽  
Rational Choice ◽  
Rational Choice Theory ◽  
Choice Theory ◽  
Choice Model ◽  
Cost Benefit ◽  
Original Data ◽  
Decision Making Process ◽  
The Public

Drawing on the original data collected during a period of university student protest in Greece, we explore whether the expected gains from the act of protesting itself influence an individual's decision to participate in collective action. More particularly, we investigate the extent to which the process incentives qualify the weight individuals attach to the primary elements of the original cost–benefit equation of rational choice theory as well as other considerations in their decision-making process. Our findings point out that the magnitude of the effect of the process incentives is very strong and its inclusion in a rational choice model improves our understanding of students’ participation in protest activities. Turning to indirect effects, we show that process incentives behave as a first stage precondition for the students’ decision to participate in collective action. In the absence of perceived benefits associated with the process of protesting, the importance of attaining the public good becomes much less important in their decision-making process.

Game Theory in Context

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Suk-Young Chwe
Keyword(s):  
Game Theory ◽  
Rational Choice ◽  
Rational Choice Theory ◽  
Choice Theory ◽  
Simple Game ◽  
Strategic Thinking ◽  
Theoretic Model ◽  
Mansfield Park ◽  
Much Ado About Nothing ◽  
Game Theoretic

This chapter explains game theory from the ground up. It first considers the concepts of choice and preferences before discussing strategic thinking as a combination of several skills. Game theory is built upon rational choice theory, and the chapter uses an example from Jane Austen's Mansfield Park to illustrate first rational choice theory and then game theory. To demonstrate the usefulness of game theory, it uses a simple game-theoretic model to show how Beatrice and Benedick in William Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing, Richard and Harrison in Richard Wright's Black Boy, and people revolting against an oppressive regime all face the same situation. Finally, it reviews previous work trying to bring game theory, as well as related concepts such as “theory of mind,” together with the study of literature.

scholarly journals Bistable probabilities: a unified framework for studying rationality and irrationality in classical and quantum games

2020 ◽  
Vol 476 (2237) ◽  
pp. 20190839
Author(s):  
Shahram Dehdashti ◽  
Lauren Fell ◽  
Abdul Karim Obeid ◽  
Catarina Moreira ◽  
Peter Bruza
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Rational Choice ◽  
Nash Equilibria ◽  
Rational Choice Theory ◽  
Choice Theory ◽  
Probabilistic Framework ◽  
Unified Framework ◽  
Quantum Games ◽  
Rational Decision Making ◽  
Game Theoretic

This article presents a unified probabilistic framework that allows both rational and irrational decision-making to be theoretically investigated and simulated in classical and quantum games. Rational choice theory is a basic component of game-theoretic models, which assumes that a decision-maker chooses the best action according to their preferences. In this article, we define irrationality as a deviation from a rational choice. Bistable probabilities are proposed as a principled and straightforward means for modelling (ir)rational decision-making in games. Bistable variants of classical and quantum Prisoner’s Dilemma, Stag Hunt and Chicken are analysed in order to assess the effect of (ir)rationality on agent utility and Nash equilibria. It was found that up to three Nash equilibria exist for all three classical bistable games and maximal utility was attained when agents were rational. Up to three Nash equilibria exist for all three quantum bistable games; however, utility was shown to increase according to higher levels of agent irrationality.

Rational Choice Theory and the 1990 Party Merger in South Korea

OUGHTOPIA ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 35 (2) ◽  
pp. 247-282
Author(s):  
In-Kyun Kim ◽  
Myeong-Geon Koh
Keyword(s):  
South Korea ◽  
Rational Choice ◽  
Rational Choice Theory ◽  
Choice Theory

POLITICS-LAW CONVERGENCE OR DIVERGENCE? 'SMALL' POLITICAL PARTIES, REALPOLITIKAND SOUTH AFRICA'S 20 YEARS OF DEMOCRACY

2015 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Kealeboga J Maphunye
Keyword(s):  
Game Theory ◽  
Political Parties ◽  
Rational Choice ◽  
Significant Role ◽  
Rational Choice Theory ◽  
Choice Theory ◽  
Democratic Consolidation ◽  
Secondary Research ◽  
Extant Literature ◽  
African Charter

This article examines South Africa's 20-year democracy by contextualising the roles of the 'small' political parties that contested South Africa's 2014 elections. Through the  prism  of South  Africa's  Constitution,  electoral legislation  and the African Charter on Democracy, Elections and Governance, it examines these parties' roles in South Africa's democratisation; their influence,  if any, in parliament, and whether they play any role in South Africa's continental or international engagements. Based on a review of the extant literature, official documents,  legislation, media, secondary research, reports and the results of South Africa's elections, the article relies on game theory, rational choice theory and theories of democracy and democratic consolidation to examine 'small' political parties' roles in the country's political and legal systems. It concludes that the roles of 'small' parties in governance and democracy deserve greater recognition than is currently the case, but acknowledges the extreme difficulty experienced by the 'small'  parties in playing a significant role in democratic consolidation, given their formidable opponent in a one-party dominant system.

Rational Choice Contractualism

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Moehler
Keyword(s):  
Rational Choice ◽  
Rational Choice Theory ◽  
Choice Theory ◽  
Correct Choice ◽  
Original Position ◽  
Decision Situation ◽  
Moral Principles ◽  
Theories Of Justice ◽  
Principles Of Justice ◽  
Traditional Understanding

This chapter discusses contractualist theories of justice that, although they rely explicitly on moral assumptions in the traditional understanding of morality, employ rational choice theory for the justification of principles of justice. In particular, the chapter focuses on the dispute between Rawls and Harsanyi about the correct choice of principles of justice in the original position. The chapter shows that there is no winner in the Rawls–Harsanyi dispute and, ultimately, formal methods alone cannot justify moral principles. This finding is significant for the development of the rational decision situation that serves for the derivation of the weak principle of universalization for the domain of pure instrumental morality.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document