Share the story of what Open Access means to you
University of Michigan needs your feedback to better understand how readers are using openly available ebooks. You can help by taking a short, privacy-friendly survey.
Positive Political Theory I: Collective Preference
David Austen-Smith and Jeffrey S. Banks
Your institution does not have access to this book. Please try other options.
Are you a librarian? See purchase information.
Are you a librarian? See purchase information.
Positive Political Theory I is concerned with the formal theory of preference aggregation for collective choice. The theory is developed as generally as possible, covering classes of aggregation methods that include such well-known examples as majority and unanimity rule and focusing in particular on the extent to which any aggregation method is assured to yield a set of "best" alternatives. The book is intended both as a contribution to the theory of collective choice and a pedagogic tool.
Austen-Smith and Banks have made the exposition both rigorous and accessible to people with some technical background (e.g., a course in multivariate calculus). The intended readership ranges from more technically-oriented graduate students and specialists to those students in economics and political science interested less in the technical aspects of the results than in the depth, scope, and importance of the theoretical advances in positive political theory.
"This is a stunning book. Austen-Smith and Banks have a deep understanding of the material, and their text gives a powerfully unified and coherent perspective on a vast literature. The exposition is clear-eyed and efficient but never humdrum. Even those familiar with the subject will find trenchant remarks and fresh insights every few pages. Anyone with an interest in contemporary liberal democratic theory will want this book on the shelf." --Christopher Achen, University of Michigan
David Austen-Smith is Professor of Political Science, Professor of Economics, and Professor of Management and Strategy, Northwestern University. Jeffrey S. Banks is Professor of Political Science, California Institute of Technology.
Austen-Smith and Banks have made the exposition both rigorous and accessible to people with some technical background (e.g., a course in multivariate calculus). The intended readership ranges from more technically-oriented graduate students and specialists to those students in economics and political science interested less in the technical aspects of the results than in the depth, scope, and importance of the theoretical advances in positive political theory.
"This is a stunning book. Austen-Smith and Banks have a deep understanding of the material, and their text gives a powerfully unified and coherent perspective on a vast literature. The exposition is clear-eyed and efficient but never humdrum. Even those familiar with the subject will find trenchant remarks and fresh insights every few pages. Anyone with an interest in contemporary liberal democratic theory will want this book on the shelf." --Christopher Achen, University of Michigan
David Austen-Smith is Professor of Political Science, Professor of Economics, and Professor of Management and Strategy, Northwestern University. Jeffrey S. Banks is Professor of Political Science, California Institute of Technology.
-
Cover
-
Title
-
Copyright
-
Dedication
-
Contents
-
Acknowledgments
-
Preface
-
1 Choice and Preference
-
1.1 Preference-driven choice
-
1.2 Rationalizable choice
-
1.3 Application: The unitary actor assumption
-
1.4 Transitive rationalizability
-
1.5 Application: Choice of coalitional partners
-
1.6 Discussion
-
1.7 Exercises
-
1.8 Further reading
-
-
2 Power and Collective Rationality
-
2.1 Aggregation and Arrow’s Theorem
-
2.2 Application: Choosing a representative
-
2.3 Quasi-transitive and acyclic rules
-
2.4 Decisive sets and filters
-
2.5 Collective choice rules
-
2.6 Discussion
-
2.7 Exercises
-
2.8 Further reading
-
-
3 Restricting Outcomes
-
3.1 Decisive coalitions and simple rules
-
3.2 Acyclic simple rules
-
3.3 Application: A comparison of simple rules
-
3.4 Voting rules
-
3.5 Counting rules
-
3.6 Discussion
-
3.7 Exercises
-
3.8 Further reading
-
-
4 Restricting Preferences
-
4.1 Single-peaked preferences
-
4.2 Core characterization
-
4.3 One-dimensional outcome space
-
4.4 Application: Public goods provision
-
4.5 Order-restricted preferences
-
4.6 Application: Collective choice of tax-rates
-
4.7 Discussion
-
4.8 Exercises
-
4.9 Further reading
-
-
5 The Spatial Model
-
5.1 Choosing from a continuum
-
5.2 Core existence
-
5.3 Application: Distributive politics
-
5.4 Characterizing core points
-
5.5 Discussion
-
5.6 Exercises
-
5.7 Further reading
-
-
6 Instability and Chaos
-
6.1 Generic nonexistence of core points
-
6.2 Application: Distributive politics revisited
-
6.3 Cycles
-
6.4 Discussion
-
6.5 Exercises
-
6.6 Further reading
-
-
7 Summary and Conclusions
-
7.1 Social choice
-
7.2 Game theory
-
-
Bibliography
-
Index
Citable Link
Published: 1998
Publisher: University of Michigan Press
- 978-0-472-02246-5 (ebook)
- 978-0-472-08721-1 (paper)