Abstract The goal of social explanation is to understand human action, both individual and collective. To do so successfully we must explain action on three distinct (but intertwined) levels: the actors? intentions, the meaning that actors and interpreters ascribe to action, and the structural ideals that govern action. Each level of explanation has certain types of rationality associated with it. Only on the level of intentionality does instrumental rationality assume a prime importance, yet even there it must compete with normative (...) and expressive accounts of action. (shrink)

Political science and economic science . . . make use of the same language, the same mode of abstraction, the same instruments of thought and the same method of reasoning. (Black 1998, 354) Proponents as well as opponents of economics imperialism agree that imperialism is a matter of unification; providing a unified framework for social scientific analysis. Uskali Mäki distinguishes between derivational and ontological unification and argues that the latter should serve as a constraint for the former. We explore whether, (...) in the case of rational-choice political science, self-interested behavior can be seen as a common causal element and solution concepts as the common derivational element, and whether the former constraints the use of the latter. We find that this is not the case. Instead, what is common to economics and rational-choice political science is a set of research heuristics and a focus on institutions with similar structures and forms of organization. (shrink)

ABSTRACTIlya Somin's Democracy and Political Ignorance represents a missed opportunity to fully examine the implications of public ignorance in modern democracies. Somin persuasively argues that existing levels of public ignorance undermine the main normative accounts of democratic legitimacy, and he demonstrates that neither cognitive shortcuts nor heuristics can provide a quick fix for democracy. However, Somin seeks to find a simple explanation for public ignorance in the conscious, rational choices of voters. He thus commits to the position that voters choose (...) to be ignorant and irrational—and to the simplistic implication that given the right incentives they would choose otherwise. This position is empirically problematic, methodologically flawed, and theoretically redundant. On the more plausible view that ignorance is the inadvertent result of social complexity, it is clear that simply focusing on incentives tells us little about what voters would or would not know under different institutional circumstances. (shrink)

Drawing general inferences on the basis of single-case and small- n studies is often seen as problematic. This article suggests a logic of generalization based on thinly rationalistic social mechanisms. Ideal-type mechanisms can be derived from empirical observations in one case and, based on the assumption of thin rationality, used as a generalizing bridge to other contexts with similar actor constellations. Thus, the “portability” builds on expectations about similar mechanisms operating in similar contexts. We present the general logic behind such (...) “rationalistic generalization” and relate it to other ideas about generalization from single-case studies. (shrink)

The thesis contrasts two hostile and divergent intellectual paradigms in social sciences: rational choice and critical theory. Both rational choice and critical theory offer contrasting perspectives on the structures of social interaction. However, both critical theory and rational choice theory share overlapping concerns ie., both are preoccupied with determining what rational can mean in the realm of social and political interaction. In the case of rational choice paradigm, instrumental reason forms the cornerstone of the theoretical edifice. Ever since the publication (...) of Jurgen Habermas' The lhemy qf Communicative Action Vol. / and Vol. II instrumental reason has come under severe attack. His critique anchors on a theory of communicative reason. What makes Habermas' work distinctive is that he does not regard instrumental reason as the single inevitable concomitant of modernity. Habermas sees in modernity an alternative way of conceptualising social interaction in terms of communication rather than strategy. So in a way, his work is a challenge to the defenders of modernity aiming to build a unified social science Jurgen Habermas advances the notion of communicative reason as the centerpiece of a social theory as opposed to instrumental reason. By providing a systematic grounding of the concept of reason in human language, he hopes to establish normative basis of critical theory. This model of reaching agreement or consent constitutes a process of dialogue in which reasons are exchanged between participants. This process is perceived to be a joint search for consensus. Such a dialogic concept of collective choice would necessarily work not with fixed preferences to be amalgamated but with preferences that are altered or modified as competing reasons are advanced in the course of discussion. In rational discussion, the only thing supposed to count is the power of better argument. Both rational choice and critical theory conceptualise politics in different ways. Rational choice theories critique democratic mechanisms failing to generate general will. Consequently, the political prescriptions offered are limited government or market. On the contrary, the political implications of Habermas' theory of deliberative democracy is anchored in the notion of liberal public sphere envisaging a cognitivist, rationalist vision in which discourse forms a critical normative basis for evaluating the political and moral principles. (shrink)