Intellectual odyssey of a PPE graduate

H. Eckstein could say a few years ago that “political culture theory may plausibly be considered one of two still viable general approaches to political theory and explanation proposed since the early fifties to replace the long‐dominant formalism‐legalism of the field — the other being political rational choice theory” (1988, 789). For the last two decades, the rational choice approach has been dominant and thriving in many fields of political science, whether in international relations, political sociology, public administration or public policy; it has greatly reinforced the theoretical and empirical basis of the explanation of human freedom of action. But it has recently shown some signs of intellectual fatigue. Critics now underscore that, assuming that individuals compare expected benefits and costs of actions prior to adopting strategies for action, is valid and useful only in relatively simple choice situations where information is easily available and interpretable (Elster 1989; Dunleawy 1991). Some neo‐institutionalists have claimed that rationality comes not as means‐end calculus prior to action but rather as an ex‐post justification after choice (March, Olsen 1989; Hall 1986, 15–20). Others have come to say that the rational choice approach, which explains how people ought to act in order to achieve aims and not what these aims ought to be, totally misses the central question of why it is that people have “preferences” and pursue some aims rather than others (Wildavsky 1987; Cook, Levi 1990; Wildavsky 1994). It does not mean that the rational choice approach should be discarded: there should rather be a “contextualization” of rationality which explains both why the same man in different situations or contexts adopts different rationalities, and why in the same context two men can adopt different rationalities (Wildavsky 1994).But the rational choice approach is also showing its limits in the very field where it was born and has blossomed: economics. In a recent issue of a French national newspaper, two articles dealing with economics and development were pointing at the same problem: cultural explanations of economic behavior are needed. In the first article, the former General Secretary of the United Nations, now President of the UNESCO‐UNO World Commission on Culture and Development, J. Perez de Cuellar, advocated a cultural approach of the economic development of the Third World countries in order to find, at last, an enduring and practical solution to their endemic problems (1994). In the second article, a journalist reflecting on why the same hard economic therapies have worked in Poland but not in Russia could only refer to the “specific economic culture of Russia” described by economists (Vernholes 1994).These clear limits imposed upon the rational choice approach have brought culturalist theory back into favor among social scientists. Does this mean that a well‐built culturalist theory might be a new “explanatory panacea, a universal nostrum” (Thompson, Ellis, Wildavsky 1992, 516)? The aim of this article is to try to unravel the cultural approach and assess its potential in the specific field of public administration. To do this, we shall draw on two close but relatively separate disciplines — political science and organizational theory — which we believe (should) meet to give a richer account of administrative reality. Our purpose is to question the recent interest in and utilization of the cultural metaphor(s) by bureaucrats, politicians, “special advisers” and authors in the analysis and implementation of administrative reform. The reason for this inquiry is that, contrary to analysts of private sector organizations, specialists of public sector organizations have not yet seriously addressed a culturalist theory of public administration while acknowledging that there is or there are public administration culture(s). We therefore hope to evaluate the usefulness of a culturalist theory for public administration. In this rather complex theoretical field, we prefer to take the simple solution to try to explain first the classical culturalist theory, and second, the new culturalist theory. Third, we should see whether there is or should be anything specific about administrative culture and a culturalist theory of public administration.

Introduction: the Sociology of Medical Science and Technology

Joseph Alois Schumpeter worked at Chernivtsi city for almost two academic years (1909-1911). During this time, he wrote one of his major works, The Theory of Economic Development, a series of articles that were important for his subsequent economic, sociological and political science research. So, regarding his famous work “Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy” (1942) he spoke out that his ideas were founded back in 1910-1911 during discussions of lectures about the state and society. On the basis of university lectures Schumpeter's brochure “How does one study social science” was prepared and published. Social science, it says, is a doctrine of social events, the science of what unites the state and society, determines the behaviour and fate of social groups and individuals, in short, the science of social being and the formation of human. Schumpeter emphasizes that there is no single social science. There are only separate social sciences, which neither form a single organic whole nor agree with each other at all. Schumpeter believed that political economy was the oldest and better developed social science. Further, the brochure highlights sociology (the doctrine of the relationship between individuals and groups of individuals in the social whole), the doctrine of religion, the doctrine of law, folk psychology. Describing the essence of the social sciences, Schumpeter noticed that they were doing the same thing as the natural ones. They collect factual material and try to find certain patterns in it. The study of social sciences, according to Schumpeter, can contribute to seeing things in the right proportion, distinguishing the essential from the non-essential, and the causes from the consequences. Keywords: social science; the essence of social science; sociology; the doctrine of law; the value of the social sciences; the study of the social sciences

Why Take Risks? David J. Pervin (bio) Risk-Taking in International Politics: Prospect Theory in American Foreign Policy. By Rose McDermott. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1998, 242 pp. $42.50. International relations is an inherently risky realm: policy choices have implications for gains and losses at home and abroad, whether economic, military, or political. Leaders make decisions in uncertain environments and policy outcomes are determined partly by their choices and partly by the choices of foreign leaders. Understanding, explaining, and predicting when leaders are more or less likely to take risks, and what types of risks they are likely to take, is of the utmost importance. Two major trends in analyzing risky decision-making in international relations are the rational choice and the psychological approaches. The rational choice approach, derived from economics, has developed a normative model of how decisions should be made, emphasizing how cost-benefit calculations combine with probabilities for achieving the best, or optimal, outcome given certain constraints. The psychological approach highlights certain impediments to rational decision-making, such as leaders’ personalities, stress, anger, dismissal of evidence inconsistent with prior beliefs, commitment to group solidarity, overconfidence, and attributing evil intent to the opponent. Ironically, while much of the psychological literature criticizes the rational choice model’s theoretical foundations for not accurately accounting for all aspects of the process of decision-making, it adopts the rational choice’s normative foundations in assessing historical decisions. That is, [End Page 252] much of the psychological literature evaluates actual decisions in such terms as errors or misjudgments, the implicit assumption being that leaders could have avoided negative consequences if they had adhered to the norms of rational decision-making. More recently, a third approach to explaining risky policy decisions has drawn on the cognitive literature known as prospect theory. Rose McDermott’s Risk-Taking in International Politics: Prospect Theory in American Foreign Policy analyzes foreign policy decisions in the context of this growing literature. McDermott, an assistant professor of political science at Cornell University, provides a concise introduction to prospect theory’s findings and their implications for the analysis of foreign policy decision-making. Prospect theory differs from the rational choice and psychological approaches in two critical ways. First, prospect theory indicates that people are risk-averse when seeking gains and risk-acceptant when attempting to avoid losses. Second, whether a situation is viewed as involving potential losses or gains depends critically on how the issue is “framed,” perceived, or portrayed: it is not necessarily a function of its “objective” characteristics. The implications of prospect theory are in stark contrast to those of the rational choice and the psychological approaches. Rational choice actors will only take risks in order to make gains. Moreover, differences in their willingness to take risks reflect personal disposition rather than perceptions of whether actions or policies are pursued to avoid losses or to realize gains. And, in contrast with the psychological approach, prospect theory highlights general tendencies rather than the idiosyncrasies of individual leaders. As part of her analysis, McDermott examines prospect theory’s hypotheses against the evidence of four foreign policy decisions made by Presidents Eisenhower and Carter: President Eisenhower’s denial of American espionage when the U-2 spy plane was shot down by the Soviet Union; his decision not to support Britain, France, and Israel in their tripartite attack on Egypt after its nationalization of the Suez Canal; President Carter’s decision to allow the Shah of Iran into the United States, which sparked the hostage crisis; and his failed mission to rescue American hostages held at the embassy in Iran. Not surprisingly, prospect theory’s expectations are borne out in each case: when decision-makers sought to avoid losses, they took riskier actions than when they sought to pursue gains. While McDermott’s research demonstrates the utility of prospect theory in explaining decisions, there are a number of [End Page 253] ambiguities that vitiate the cogency of her argument. Here, three of them shall be discussed: situationalism versus subjectivism; definitions of risk; and normative versus descriptive goals. In terms of situationalism and subjectivism, McDermott alternates between suggesting that gains and losses are objectively inhere in a situation and arguing that...

By analysing examples, this paper makes three points about rational choice approaches within sociology. First, it is maintained that statistical techniques such as path diagrams and log-linear models are more suited to rational choice approaches than is apparent from rational choice criticisms of empirical social research. Secondly, it is held that the conditions under which the postulate that people act rationally is applied are more important than this postulate itself, and that there should be a shift from ‘single decision, one good and two actors‘ to ’multiple decision, three actors and two goods’ auxiliary assumptions. Thirdly, it is argued that rational choice approaches pay insufficient attention to the questions they should address and that the sociological tradition might furnish questions leading to exemplars which turn rational choice approaches into a progressive sociological paradigm.

Out of the fog: Catalyzing integrative capacity in interdisciplinary research

Notes on Contributors

This chapter examines the continuing disparities between Whites and Blacks through extensive social science data and studies of the impacts of systemic racism. It first utilizes what demographers call the dissimilarity index to measure housing segregation in major metropolitan areas; cities with heavily Black populations, such as Detroit, have become “hyper-segregated” with almost total “social isolation” of Blacks. The chapter then examines the long-standing academic and political debates over the causes of systemic racism, beginning in 1965 with a government report, The Negro Family: The Case for National Action, by a young Labor Department aide, Daniel Patrick “Pat” Moynihan. He found the main cause of Black poverty and increasing single Black motherhood in the “pathology” of a “matriarchal” Black family structure in which males are neither needed nor welcome. Moynihan’s report spurred an angry rebuttal in a book by psychology professor William Ryan, Blaming the Victim, which found the main cause of Black poverty in the systemic racism of White society and culture. The chapter then looks at social science studies by William Julius Wilson (explaining the “racial invariance” of White and Black crime); psychologist John Dollard (explaining the prevalence of Black-on-Black crime with the “frustration-aggression-displacement” theory); and Black psychiatrists William Grier and Price Cobbs (explaining “Black rage” as rooted in White control of institutions that exclude or discriminate against Blacks). The chapter concludes with a look at the War on Drugs of the 1980s and 1990s and the resulting mass incarceration of Black men.

Library Catalog Analysis as a tool in studies of social sciences and humanities: An exploratory study of published book titles in Economics

Interview given by two ex-presidents of ANPOCS, professors Fabio Wanderley Reis (political scientist) and Gilberto Velho (anthropologist) as well as by the president in function, professor Elisa Reis (sociologist) on the progress achieved regarding the development of research and post-graduation studies in social science in Brazil. The answers of the interviewed have been grouped into four topics: social science as presently practiced in Brazil; development of research and graduate studies in Social Science; relationship between the Brazilian academic community and the international community; main research themes and methodological approaches; impact of Social Science on Brazilian society and main problems and perspectives of Social Science in Brazil.

This chapter examines five main approaches in comparative politics that represent important contributions: old and new institutional analysis, interest approach, ideas approach, individual approach, and the influence of the international environment. The role of ‘interaction’ is also explored. After explaining the use of theory in comparative political analysis, the chapter considers structural functionalism, systems theory, Marxism, corporatism, institutionalism, governance, and comparative political economy. It also discusses behavioural and rational choice approaches, how political culture helps in understanding political behaviour in different countries, self-interest in politics, and the implications of globalization for comparative politics. The chapter concludes by assessing the importance of looking at political processes and of defining what the ‘dependent variables’ are.

This chapter examines five main approaches in comparative politics that represent important contributions: old and new institutional analysis, interest approach, ideas approach, individual approach, and the influence of the international environment. The role of ‘interaction’ is also explored. After explaining the use of theory in comparative political analysis, the chapter considers structural functionalism, systems theory, Marxism, corporatism, institutionalism, governance, and comparative political economy. It also discusses behavioural and rational choice approaches, how political culture helps to understand political behaviour in different countries, self-interest in politics, and the implications of globalization for comparative politics. The chapter concludes by assessing the importance of looking at political processes and of defining what the ‘dependent variables’ are.

This chapter examines five main approaches in comparative politics that represent important contributions: old and new institutional analysis, interest approach, ideas approach, individual approach, and the influence of the international environment. The role of ‘interaction’ is also explored. After explaining the use of theory in comparative political analysis, the chapter considers structural functionalism, systems theory, Marxism, corporatism, institutionalism, governance, and comparative political economy. It also discusses behavioural and rational choice approaches, how political culture helps to understand political behaviour in different countries, self-interest in politics, and the implications of globalization for comparative politics. The chapter concludes by assessing the importance of looking at political processes and of defining what the ‘dependent variables’ are.

One of the major theoretical paradigms in sociology and the social sciences is the rational choice approach (RCA). George C. Homans, with his article "Social Behavior as Exchange" from 1958, is the founder of the RCA in sociology. Although in the meantime there is a vast and burgeoning literature applying and extending the approach, it is still not clear what its central assumptions are and what arguments contemporary rational choice scholars adduce that speak in favor or against it. The present paper addresses these questions.

The rational choice approach to the analysis of political action takes as its starting point the need to construct a model of the individual actor and its choices as the basis for its investigations of the interactions of a plurality of actors. This paper questions the theoretical foundations of that approach, concentrating on its postulates of rationality, homogeneity, and individualism. It argues that the conceptualisation of actors, their decisions, and the conditions in which they are made, rasies important questions that cannot be posed within the rational choice approach. A final section indicates some of the problems with recent attempts to integrate elements of the rational choice approach into marxism.