Rational Choice Analysis Research Articles

RUSSIAN STRATEGIC CULTURE: INSIGHTS FROM THE FULL-SCALE WAR AGAINST UKRAINE

Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine on 24th February 2022 marks a security policy paradigm shift akin to ‘9/11’ for Europe. For the international community of security experts, the invasion represents an anomaly for their rational choice analysis. Their ‘logic of consequence’ must be replaced by the alternative ‘logic of appropriateness’. Hence, the author of this paper employs a broad approach to strategic culture stressing Kremlin regime security as Putin’s operational code. Under this approach, interventionism characterizes the Russian ‘way of war’ as does sheer brutality. The decision to invade Ukraine resulted from Putin’s personal hubris and idiosyncrasies as much as groupthink within the Russian security elite. Putin’s calculus behind invading Ukraine is reconstructed as geopolitical and geo-economic imperialism, along with domestic concerns for pacifying Russia. The first year of war exposed a dysfunctional Russian strategic culture - a collapsing Blitzkrieg effort and a failure to prevail in the subsequent battle for Donbas. The Russian conduct of war reiterated the signature Russian strategic culture of massive destruction and unpunished war crimes. Putin often doubles down and escalates, as seen in the partial mobilization on 21st September 2022. The winter of 2022–2023 brought both systematic Russian attacks on critical Ukrainian energy infrastructure and fierce battles in Vuhledar, Soledar and Bakhmut in which Russia used meatgrinder tactics. The Russian military performance improved during the second year of the war due to the construction of massive fortifications along the frontline. Putin’s strategy has thus turned in favour of a long war of attrition seeking to outlast the combined effect of successive Western upgrading of the weapons supplied to Ukraine and the stamina of the Ukrainians themselves. The Ukrainian counteroffensive shows Ukraine to have the initiative, but progress is painfully slow. This reflects the fact that the war is a war of attrition between two different militaries supported by two dissimilar coalitions of productive power and high-tech innovative capacity.

Rational choice theory and religion: the case of Turkey

ABSTRACT This study applies the rational choice perspective to government religion policy in Turkey. We argue that a rational choice analysis can provide a new perspective on how the pro-Islamist Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi – AKP) transformed Turkey’s religion policy from one that was constitutionally secular to one which strongly supports Islam. We also further develop the rational choice approach arguing that radical transitions in religion policy are often incremental and require support from political allies. Also, while the motivation for transitioning from a secular regime to a religious monopoly may be due to a desire for religious legitimacy, the nature and timing of this transition may be influenced by the rise or decline of other bases for legitimacy. Overall, this study demonstrates the utility of applying the rational choice theory of religion to Muslim-majority countries and the mechanisms through which countries change their religion policies.

Constitutional artisans: James Buchanan and Vincent Ostrom on artifactual man, the constitutional attitude, and the political economy of constitutional design

This paper examines the relationship between the work of James Buchanan and Vincent Ostrom. It adds to existing work by providing a comprehensive analysis of Buchanan’s and Ostrom’s changing views about how the ‘logical foundations of constitutional democracy’ should be conceptualised. The paper traces how in the 1960s and 1970s Ostrom took inspiration from the rational choice analysis of constitutional democracy in Buchanan and Tullock’s The Calculus of Consent, explaining how it shaped his reading of key texts in political theory and his analysis of public administration. It then discusses how Buchanan subsequently drew on Ostrom’s notion of artifactual man in developing his understanding of the ‘constitutional attitude’ necessary for individuals to engage in institutional design. It then explores how, from the mid-to-late 1990s, Ostrom became increasingly critical of Buchanan’s reliance on rational choice theory for his analysis of constitutional decision-making, identifying this as a key difference between their views.

Further Thoughts on Defining f(x) for Ethical Machines: Ethics, Rational Choice, and Risk Analysis

There is a tendency to anthropomorphize artificial intelligence (AI) and reify it as a person. From the perspective of machine ethics and ethical AI, this has resulted in the belief that truly autonomous ethical agents (i.e., machines and algorithms) can be defined, and that machines could, by themselves, behave ethically and perform actions that are justified from a normative standpoint. Under this assumption, and given that utilities and risks are generally seen as quantifiable, many scholars have seen consequentialism (utilitarianism) and rational choice theory as likely candidates to be implemented in automated ethical decision procedures, for instance to assess and manage risks as well as maximize expected utility. Building on a recent example from the machine ethics literature, we use computer simulations to argue that technical issues with ethical ramifications leave room for reasonable disagreement even when algorithms are based on ethical and rational foundations such as consequentialism and rational choice theory. By doing so, our aim is to illustrate the limitations of automated behavior and ethical AI and, incidentally, to raise awareness on the limits of so-called ethical agents.

A behavioral approach to the rational choice analysis of the limits of state action

ABSTRACT Some economists argue that ignorance, real-world complexities and market failures undermine the ability of self-regulating markets to operate in a way that approximates an efficient process. In more recent discussions, cognitive processes, in the form of various biases, have become the primary focus of analytical attention. This paper counters these claims. Instead of responding with a doubling down on the commitment to rational choice models, we argue that the individuals that populate our model are highly imperfect, as is the world in which they live. Economic agents are human actors, not computers. They possess beliefs and expectations, hopes and fears and formulate their purposes and plans accordingly. They strive to achieve their desired ends and do the best they can give the constraints they face. In the process of striving, people rely on institutions to cope with their ignorance, to manage uncertainty and risk and to figure out response strategies to achieve their goals. Our analysis emphasizes the filtering processes of alternative institutional arrangements that allow imperfect people to navigate the world.

A Rational Choice Analysis in Offering The Spirit of The Northern Buddhism

Offering the spirits in the ritual system of Northern Buddhism is a ritual performed daily for monks and an opportunity for Buddhists to participate in many different purposes. In it, there is an exchange between gain and loss while performing the ritual of offering the spirit. It could be said that based on the concepts and beliefs about ghosts and demons in Mong Son thi thuc - one of the important rites in the customs of Northern Buddhists - these rituals give us a deeper insight into the act of worshiping the souls. This research investigates the rational choice of Northern Buddhists in Ho Chi Minh City-based on Rational Choice Theory. Qualitative research methods such as fieldwork, in-depth interviews, qualitative analysis, and quantitative research by questionnaires have shown that there is rationality in the choice of worship the souls according to Mong Son thi thuc of Northern Buddhists among believers. In other words, there seems to be a desire to receive one or more benefits from this spirit offering. Rational Choice Theory has shown its applicability in the study of rituals, religions in particular, and in the research of the humanities and social sciences in general, which has received little attention in the past.

Индивидуални решения и колективен избор в историята на икономическата мисъл

This paper highlights the difficulties encountered in building individual decisions. In addition, possible incompatibilities can be found between individual choices and collective choices. Therefore, focus will be placed on how to transfer an analysis of rational individual choice in the context of collective choices. Voting is usually the most used expression of individual wills to arrive at the formulation of a collective decision. The model used highlights the paradox of electoral participation and hence the benefit of ‘no vote’. Along the path, the difficulties encountered when one tries to transform individual preferences into collective choices through certain procedures will be examined. Therefore, other pathways should be identified in order to describe a number of decision-making procedures in the most appropriate possible way.

Analysis of the pneumonia morbidity in children in order to optimize pharmaceutical aid

To analyze the health of the child population used statistical incidence, disease prevalence, their gender features and age characteristics, mortality. According to WHO, among the major causes of child mortality, the share of pneumonia accounts for 19% of all deaths. In Ukraine in the structure of infant mortality pneumonia ranked third.The aim of the work was to study the structure of child morbidity with respiratory diseases and pneumonia in Ukraine and separately of Southern region.
 The material of the study are the data of medical statistics. The study used informational, statistical and graphical methods.
 The study found that respiratory diseases occupy a leading place in the structure of child morbidity in Ukraine, with a 67.1% share. It was found that the share of children (0–17 years) in 2015 accounted for 65 411 cases of pneumonia (32%). The analysis showed that the incidence of pneumonia is characterized by age and regional differencies. Thus, the highest rates are observed in children aged 0–14 years and of urban children. According to the statistical analysis of the Southern region, in the Kherson region incidence rate of pneumonia was significantly higher than the national average. Conducted analysis of normative documents regulating the treatment of pneumonia in children. It turned out that in documents there are groups of drugs without a specific medication lists. It is necessary to conduct pharmacoeconomic analysis of rational choice of drugs and rational use of healthcare resources.

Social Scientists on Crime After World War II

This paper addresses the history of social scientific work on crime after World War II. We argue that the mid-1960s marked a turning point that profoundly transformed the way in which the public discourse, policy programs, and social scientific work addressed crime. Up to the mid-1960s, crime was not a central concern for the average American and the Federal government had a very limited role in fighting it. Within social science, sociological studies dominated the analysis of crime. The mainstream of research mixed the influence of Robert Merton’s theory of anomie with the Chicago-school ecological approach, relegating biological and psychological explanations to a backstage status. It located the origins of delinquent behavior in relative deprivation and dysfunctional neighborhoods. This broad outlook framed the way in which various social scientific notions infused the study of crime and eventually made their way to Washington, making the idea of relative deprivation central to Lyndon Johnson’s War on Poverty. From then on, crime fell under the prerogatives of the Federal government and gradually gained prominence. At the same time, the social turmoil of the 1960s challenged the consensus about the so-called “rootcauses” of crime and their treatment though welfare programs and community empowerment. By the end of the decade, crime rates had skyrocketed and riots erupted throughout the country. The fear of crime nurtured the rise of a conservative view that emphasized the significance of law enforcement and punishment. The figure of the criminal as a responsible decision-maker became increasingly popular. Social scientists involved in the public attack on crime also shared increasing doubts about social-deprivation explanations. Even though they did not go as far as James Q. Wilson in urging criminologists to become “policy analysts” and relinquish the socioeconomic rootcauses of crime, the social scientific study of crime increasingly emphasized a “control” approach to crime. That approach brought together insights from economics, operations research, political science, sociology and psychology so as to address cost-effective law enforcement and deterrence. In effect, criminology became increasingly dependent on policy concerns. Public support from urban development or health agencies was progressively replaced by funds from criminal justice and law enforcement agencies, further illustrating the changing orientation in public policy. Within a number of universities, the creation of criminal justice departments also provided a new institutional setting to further this multi-disciplinary outlook and respond to the ever-increasing public demands for professional training in crime combat. By the end of the 1970s, control theories of crime represented a sizable chunk of the literature, though they were not influential enough to define a new consensus. On top of the unresolved debates on how policy-oriented research should handle crime, a number of social scientists rejected criminology’s dependence on the State and the development of policy analysis. Emerging from the counterculture of the 1960s, another approach brought together radical economists, historians, sociologists and psychologists, in analyzing lawmaking and the criminal justice system as tools used by those in power to enforce their own interests. Instead of taking the legal definition of crime for granted, they urged social scientists to analyze crime with their own tools. These were not the only theories to push for a thorough redefinition of crime in disciplinary terms. Neoliberal economic analysis of law, championed by Richard Posner and Gary Becker, also offered to redefine crime as “market bypassing” in order to promote wealth maximization. Very influential in the expansion of the boundaries of economics into the law, the movement did not stand in stark opposition to control theory if only because it also focused on deterrence. As a result of the important transformations of American society, politics and social sciences during the 1960s, knowledge about crime became specialized and increasingly discipline-oriented, even under the broad umbrellas of control theories and critical criminology. In the process, the boundaries between the social sciences shifted. The socioeconomic causes of crime used in sociology to understand individual trajectories toward criminal behavior gave increasingly way to a broader focus on crime and law enforcement, grounded on rational choice and cost benefit analysis.

Membership matters

Unable to attract enough voluntary recruits, many rebel groups rely on force to fill their ranks. Given that the group used force to compel individuals to join, a coerced conscript would be presumed unlikely to be loyal and would be expected to desert at the first opportunity. Yet, groups that have relied on coerced recruitment retain their members just as well as, if not better than, rebel armies that rely on voluntary methods of recruitment. This is a puzzle. How do rebel groups maintain allegiance and prevent desertion, especially if they rely on abduction to staff their ranks? A recruit can be forced to join a rebel group, but continuing to rely on coercion to enforce retention is too costly and not sustainable. These groups must find a way to reduce the costs of retention. The solution to this puzzle rests in the mechanisms of socialization that shape the allegiance of forcibly recruited soldiers. Socialization mechanisms are traced through three outcomes: compliance (or Type 0 socialization), role learning (Type I socialization), and norm internalization (Type II socialization). Integrating socialization theory and a rational choice analysis demonstrates that mechanisms that alter preferences through Type II socialization are effective in retaining recruits; the highest level of retention occurs when several mechanisms work in concert. Illustrative case studies of the Lord’s Resistance Army from Uganda, the Revolutionary United Front in Sierra Leone, the Maoists in Nepal, and the Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy (LURD) show that a reliance on child soldiers, group assets (pecuniary and non-pecuniary), organizational structure, and the nature of military contestation shape when different mechanisms are effective or not.

The Ordonomic Approach to Business Ethics

“Ordonomics” is a research program that has been developed at the Chair of Economic Ethics at Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg. It holds that business actors (persons and organizations) can employ morality as a “factor of production”, and that business ethics can be based on a specific rational-choice analysis that is fully in line with the established tradition of economic thinking. With regard to practice, the main point is that ordonomics offers a guiding concept for creating win-win solutions that help business firms to do well by doing good. With regard to theory, ordonomics offers a conceptual framework for business ethics that makes ethics and economics coherent and mutually compatible with each other.

Honors: A rational choice analysis of award bestowals

Principals bestow awards in different forms, such as orders, medals, decorations, badges, prizes, or titles. Our contribution focuses on the givers’ side of award bestowals and analyzes the distinct purposes that such bestowals serve. Awards have the potential to raise their recipients’ intrinsic motivation, while money is more likely to crowd it out. Awards establish special ties of loyalty between the givers and recipients. The threat of withdrawal by the givers, and rejection by recipients, serves as a mutual control mechanism on future behavior. Givers may bask in the reflected glory of well-known personalities whom they honor. They may exploit the expressive function of awards and signal to agents and the public what kind of attitude and behavior they value.

Evolutionary institutionalism.

Institutions are hard to define and hard to study. Long prominent in political science have been two theories: Rational Choice Institutionalism (RCI) and Historical Institutionalism (HI). Arising from the life sciences is now a third: Evolutionary Institutionalism (EI). Comparative strengths and weaknesses of these three theories warrant review, and the value-to-be-added by expanding the third beyond Darwinian evolutionary theory deserves consideration. Should evolutionary institutionalism expand to accommodate new understanding in ecology, such as might apply to the emergence of stability, and in genetics, such as might apply to political behavior? Core arguments are reviewed for each theory with more detailed exposition of the third, EI. Particular attention is paid to EI's gene-institution analogy; to variation, selection, and retention of institutional traits; to endogeneity and exogeneity; to agency and structure; and to ecosystem effects, institutional stability, and empirical limitations in behavioral genetics. RCI, HI, and EI are distinct but complementary. Institutional change, while amenable to rational-choice analysis and, retrospectively, to criticaljuncture and path-dependency analysis, is also, and importantly, ecological. Stability, like change, is an emergent property of institutions, which tend to stabilize after change in a manner analogous to allopatric speciation. EI is more than metaphorically biological in that institutional behaviors are driven by human behaviors whose evolution long preceded the appearance of institutions themselves.

Democratization in Serbia: An Analysis of Rational Choice and Structuralist Explanations

This paper explains political democratization in Post-Milosevic Serbia, utilizing two different accounts of the democratization process: one rooted in the rational choice framework and the other in structuralism. While rational choice explains the decisive role of political leadership in overcoming path dependence, the structuralist explanations show the transnational linkages that encourage democratization in the face of domestic setbacks. This particular debate between the two types of explanations represents the larger debate concerning the role of internal factors and external linkages in propelling democratization in transitional societies. The paper concludes by integrating the two sets of explanations offered by each theoretical perspective, in order to develop a coherent understanding of Serbia's democratization.
 
 Full text available at: https://doi.org/10.22215/rera.v9i1.240

Democratization in Serbia: An Analysis of Rational Choice and Structuralist Explanations

This paper explains political democratization in Post-Milosevic Serbia, utilizing two different accounts of the democratization process: one rooted in the rational choice framework and the other in structuralism. While rational choice explains the decisive role of political leadership in overcoming path dependence, the structuralist explanations show the transnational linkages that encourage democratization in the face of domestic setbacks. This particular debate between the two types of explanations represents the larger debate concerning the role of internal factors and external linkages in propelling democratization in transitional societies. The paper concludes by integrating the two sets of explanations offered by each theoretical perspective, in order to develop a coherent understanding of Serbia's democratization.

Reconsidering Health Consequences of the Chernobyl Accident.

The Chernobyl accident led to major human suffering caused by the evacuation and other counter-measures. However, the direct health consequences of the accident-related radiation exposures, besides the acute effects and small number of thyroid cancers, have not been observed. This absence is challenged by some influential groups affecting public policies who claim that the true extent of radiogenic health consequences is covered up. We consider such claims. The most conservative (in this case – overestimating) linear no-threshold hypothesis was used to calculate excess cancer expectations for cleanup workers, the population of the contaminated areas and the global population. Statistical estimations were performed to verify whether such expected excess was detectable. The calculated cancer excess for each group is much less than uncertainties in number of cancer cases in epidemiological studies. Therefore the absence of detected radiation carcinogenesis is in full correspondence with the most conservative a priori expectations. Regarding the cover-up claims, rational choice analysis was performed. Such analysis shows that these claims are ill-founded. The present overcautious attitude to radiological hazards should be corrected in order to mitigate the present suffering and to avoid such suffering in the future.

Schelling, von Neumann, and the Event that Didn’t Occur

Thomas Schelling was recognized by the Nobel Prize committee as a pioneer in the application of game theory and rational choice analysis to problems of politics and international relations. However, although he makes frequent references in his writings to this approach, his main explorations and insights depend upon and require acknowledgment of its limitations. One of his principal concerns was how a country could engage in successful deterrence. If the behavioral assumptions that commonly underpin game theory are taken seriously and applied consistently, however, nuclear adversaries are almost certain to engage in devastating conflict, as John von Neumann forcefully asserted. The history of the last half century falsified von Neumann’s prediction, and the “event that didn’t occur” formed the subject of Schelling’s Nobel lecture. The answer to the question “why?” is the central concern of this paper.

Rational Choice and Freudian Accounts of Cooperation

In this paper we discuss one of the richest psychological conceptions of individuals – that offered by Sigmund Freud – in relation to rational choice theory. The purpose is twofold. First, we use coordination games to translate some of Freud's ideas into a choice theoretic framework; including the three central components of Freudian psychoanalysis, the id, ego, and superego. Second, we use this framework to suggest a deeper and richer psychological characterization of the individual within the choice theoretic framework. Freud's more complex view of individuals provides a potentially deeper understanding of social interaction within the rational choice approach. This paper therefore contributes to psychology and economics within the larger field of behavioral economics We focus on Freud’s Civilization and Its Discontents (1930) to discuss both the rational choice and the Freudian conception of the relationship between the individual and society, to note points of commonality and divergence, and to understand the consequences of these differences for models of social behavior. Freud makes two theoretical contributions in this work. The first parallels recent scholarship in rational choice in discussing the relationship between individual behavior and social outcomes. Both approaches emphasize, for example, that individuals bear a cost for participating in schemes of social cooperation and interaction. In Civilization and Its Discontents, Freud goes beyond this idea, attempting to show the implications of his interpretation of society for the individual, an analysis absent from rational choice analysis. Freud argues that individuals bear a psychological cost in fulfilling the demands and obligations of civilization. Participation in society requires that individuals suppress their desires in order to realize the gains from cooperation. The implications from the second part of Freud’s analysis allow us to study the limits of the standard rational choice conception of the individual.

Hirschman meets Williamson: Relationship-specific investment and loyalty

In Albert Hirschman’s theory, loyalty plays a key role in the equilibrium between exit and voice. This article extends economic (rational choice) analysis to the emergence of loyalty, which Hirschman considers an exogenous factor. This is accomplished by linking Williamson’s theory of specific investment to Hirschman’s model. Three cases are distinguished: (1) loyalty is due to specific investment; (2) loyalty is due to (intermediate) factors influenced by specific investment; and, (3) loyalty is independent of specific investment. A simple model formalizes the first case. A paradoxical dynamic of loyalty is identified: a lower degree of specificity may lead to a weakening of loyalty in the short run but astrengthening of loyalty in the long run. An application to the process of European integration is sketched.

Policy implications of different theoretical approaches to organised crime

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to better understand the origins and forms of organised crime and develop policy conclusions for deterrence efforts.Design/methodology/approachThe paper begins by contrasting two theories of justice and evaluating their merits with respect to organised crime. Sociological and economic origins of organised crime, its institutional forms and law enforcement responses are identified. Research into the theory of organised crime is complemented by historical examples from Italy and the USA.FindingsThe paper finds that analysis of organised crime must go beyond the institutions of the state and its social contract with the populace. It must recognise relevant social and economic causative factors, and include institutional and rational choice analysis in order to better understand the nature of criminal organisations.Practical implicationsPolicy implications for deterrence efforts include support for the establishment of ad hoc enforcement agencies, infiltration of criminal networks, targeting the proceeds of crime, and statutes allowing prosecution for conspiracy or a broad range of racketeering offences.Originality/valueThe paper presents a conceptual view of organised crime which provides useful policy conclusions and a basis for future research.