Economic Models of Choice in Political Science

¶ … economics? A simple materialistic description simply does not do the subject justice. The economic approach is much more that an approach whose calculations are restricted to material goods and markets. Rather, it also should factor in other information that will explain human behavior. This can include actions based upon incomplete information, as well as the existence of costs (monetary and mental) that affect personal choices.

Certainly, this type of economic approach is much more comprehensive. It includes all of the human dialectic. This is the approach that Becker has embraced. Truly, human behavior in its totality has to be used to explain economic behavior. E-commerce aficionados make a total study of their potential customers in much the same way. They consider all of the data and spy on their quarry with "cookies" to scientifically study them. Becker is essentially remarking upon what Adam Smith and Karl Marx already knew (despite ideological differences): the economic approach is applicable to all human behavior. As he points out, Jeremy Bentham explores this in the area of pleasure and pain.

Becker disagrees with Marx in that the Marxist approach is too wrapped around material goods and the means of production. He further maintains that this approach does not go far enough and has been limited only in its effort and not because of a lack of relevance. Recently, it has been more systematically applied to war, political behavior and other phenomena and has illuminated research with a more systematic application of the economic approach.

Becker further points out that this more systematic approach helps to explain why people make decisions in seeming contradiction to a purely materialistic approach. Surely, we are the sum of all of our parts, emotional, physical and otherwise.

W.H. Riker, like Becker, is also concerned with the big questions in terms of political science. Probably one of the most innovative political scientists of his generation, he was mostly interested in the big idea, that is, his "heresthetics" or positive political theory. However, he assumes irrationality on the part of his subjects, something that is anathema to Becker, who feels these issues are relative.

Riker uses a lot of chaos, game theory and mathematics in his positive political analysis system. He believes that the lack of progress in the social sciences (macroeconomics excluded) as opposed to the progress in the "hard" sciences is due to what he sees as a lack of firm basis in rational choice models. Basically, what he is arguing for is an empirical approach. In other words, why do the political mice find the cheese in the maze? He is trying to figure out what mathematically makes them tick.

"Analyzing Politics," deals with group dynamics further and tackles economic issues on a more micro level to find out what makes groups go. The concept of "multiple majorities" provides some interesting insights. What if a group is made up of groups? Certainly, one can not speak of a majority in the singular. Instead, one speaks of "majorities." For instance, in the U.S. government, situations are so influenced. If a bill is to make its way through Congress, it has to deal with a majority in the House of Representatives and in the Senate. In addition, it has to deal with majority votes in the various committees through which it must pass. Efficiency and ease of passage is balanced in a complex fashion with the wants, needs and influence of the multiple majorities and their multiple agendas. The process is not simple, requiring complex statistical analysis not only to explain, but also to track and predict.

However, the process goes yet further. What if the things get even more "chaotic?" Let us say that order breaks down further and the "multiple majorities" break apart as well. They create not only a crisis for the political participants, but also for the political scientists trying to describe the process. Voting instability and disequilibrium are the norm in politics. Political scientists like Shepsle have learned to accept this as the norm in their discipline. Learning the hard way, they have found that tastes and the expression of those tastes are not necessarily autonomous or decisive on their own. They have to be induced or manipulated on the one hand, while being channeled, expressed and revealed on the other hand.

This organic treatment of preferences permits an analysis of particular clusters of preferences while also dealing with their outer features and effects. In this way, the empirical relationship between social and individual choice and the attendant effects (intended and non-intended) can be determined.

Further creating order from chaos, rational choice theory comes to the rescue, possibly. However, not all scholars agree. It seems that this approach may be deeply suspect. If the detractors are right, it seems that if rational choice theorists are to contribute to a general understanding or politics, they will have to fundamentally rethink their approaches so that they can contribute to the study of politics.

Unfortunately, there may be a fundamental series of methodological defects. The defects may originate from the tendency of rational choice theorists to defend universal theories of politics (Marx, Smith, etc.). The results can be tests that are so poorly conducted as to make their results moot. From reading Green and Shapiro, it can be gathered that by properly conducting the tests, the results actually undermine rational choice theory at worst or at best lend support for propositions that are lacking in originality and are so commonplace as to not be worth mentioning. In other words, why go through the exercise at all?

Green and Shapiro are not totally negative regarding rational choice theory however. With a reformulation of the questions, test procedures and a more careful test methodology, testable and verifiable results are possible. Certainly, the debate will continue.