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Public Choice

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08.05.2018 | Commissioned Editorial Commentary

Public choice and political science: a view from Europe

verfasst von: Peter Kurrild-Klitgaard

Erschienen in: Public Choice | Ausgabe 3-4/2018

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Abstract

What is the status of rational choice theory in contemporary European political science? Compared with a quarter-century ago, the rational choice approach is still far from being the paradigm of work in the discipline, but looking at both anecdotal evidence and information derived from journal citations and textbook contents, it seems that the number of political scientists working wholly or partly within the approach has grown markedly, and that its contribution to the mainstream of the field is strong.

Vorheriger Artikel Intellectual foundations of public choice, the forest from the trees

Nächster Artikel Distributive politics and congressional voting: public lands reform in the Jacksonian era

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Against such a narrow use of the term ‘public choice’, see e.g., Mitchell (1988, 1999), Riker (1988) and Ordeshook (1990).

Cf., e.g., Green and Shapiro (1994, p. ix), who spoke of “an explosion of rational choice scholarship” with “great strides” having “been made in the theoretical elaboration of rational actor models. Formidable analytical challenges have attracted a number of first-class minds; rational choice theories have grown in complexity and sophistication as a result. Moreover, “[rational choice] is well represented in the principal journals and conferences of the discipline, and its proponents are highly sought by all major American political science departments.… The advent of rational choice theory has recast much of the intellectual landscape in the discipline of political science” (Green and Shapiro 1994, p. 2f).

Cf. those identified by Nannestad (1993, pp. 34f): himself, Ole P. Kristensen and Gunnar Sjöblom.

Cf. Nannestad’s characterization (1993, pp. 135, 144, note 27) of the works of Mogens N. Pedersen and Erik Damgaard.

In this and other connections an influential source, including for political scientists, has been Martin Paldam, professor of economics at the University of Aarhus and long-time collaborator with several political scientists. On Paldam, the Danish Public Choice Workshop, etc., see Aidt et al. (2013) and Kurrild-Klitgaard (2015, p. 417).

This conclusion is clearly reflected in the fact that almost every second president of the Public Choice Society has been a political scientist (12 of 28, from 1964 through 2018), while no such scholar ever has held the same position in the European Public Choice Society (zero of 29, 1972–2018).

From the standing group’s website (http://standinggroups.ecpr.eu/appc). The group’s self-description: “Analytical politics combines systematic theoretical thinking and rigorous empirical testing. One major source of inspiration is the literature on collective choice problems, which examines the relationship between individual and collective interests. Another line of interest is generated by studies that link developments in a formal theory with sound empirical research strategy.” The founding chair (1993–1996) was Josep Colomer.

Mancur Olson, Anthony Downs, Elinor Ostrom and William Riker (pp. 40f). Kenneth Shepsle, Barry Weingast and Peter Ordeshook also were included on that list, but have been omitted here owing to belonging to a younger generation; Buchanan, Tullock and Niskanen were not included by Goodin and Klingemann. For another set of public choice names/works and some citation numbers, see Congleton (2018).

For a list of “founding books of the public choice movement”, see Grofman’s (1993) suggestions, which similarly includes Downs (1957), Buchanan and Tullock ([1962] 2004), and Olson ([1965] 1971), but in addition to these also Arrow ([1951] 1963) and Black ([1958] 1998). An expanded “canon” by Grofman also includes, inter alia, Riker (1962) and Niskanen (1971) (Grofman 2004).

Europe is defined as west of the Ural Mountains and excluding the Middle East, with the exception of Israel.

It is impossible to identify political scientists specifically, so the group includes all scholars excluding those from “Economics, Econometrics and Finance” and “Business, Management and Accounting”. In reality, that classification makes the group somewhat larger than merely political scientists.

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Titel: Public choice and political science: a view from Europe
verfasst von: Peter Kurrild-Klitgaard
Publikationsdatum: 08.05.2018
Verlag: Springer US
Erschienen in: Public Choice / Ausgabe 3-4/2018
Print ISSN: 0048-5829
Elektronische ISSN: 1573-7101
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11127-018-0554-0

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