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• Contents
• List of Boxes, Figuresand Tables
• Preface
• Chapter 1 Introduction
• Political economy to economics
• The emergence of rational choice ( 1950– 1970)
• The take- off to growth ( 1970– 1994)
• A difficult decade ( 1994– 2004)
• Major combat operations are over? ( 2004–)
• Chapter 2 James M. Buchanan and ConstitutionalPolitical Economy
• Setting the stage: the state as an escapefrom Hobbesian anarchy
• Exchange and the constitutional framework
• Choice within rules versus choice among rules
• The Calculus of Consent
• Covenants without the sword
• Assessment
• Chapter 3 Anthony Downs and the Spatial Theory of Party Competition
• Setting the stage: the demands of democracy
• The precursors of party competition
• The median voter theorem
• Qualifying the argument: accounting for divergence
• Assumption 1: there are only two parties
• Assumption 2: political space is one- dimensional
• Assumption 3: parties can move to and occupyany point in this one- dimensional space
• Assumption 4: parties are vote- maximizers
• Assumption 5: voters vote for the party closestto them in political space
• Assumption 6: there is perfect information
• Assumption 7: voters’ preferences are fixed
• Assessment
• Chapter 4 William Riker and the Theoryof Coalitions
• Setting the stage: choosing a voting system
• Riker and the theory of the minimal- winningcoalition
• Policy- seeking parties
• The portfolio- allocation model
• The transaction costs of policy agreements
• Assessment
• Chapter 5 Kenneth Arrow and Social Choice Theory
• Setting the stage: democracy and the public will
• The precursors of social choice theory
• Arrow: social choice and individual values
• Riker: liberalism against populism
• The possibility of social choice
• Assessment
• Chapter 6 Mancur Olson and the Logic of Collective Action
• Setting the stage: individuals, groups and rationality
• Olson’s The Logic of Collective Action
• Resolving collective action problems
• Elinor Ostrom and common pool governance
• Assessment
• Chapter 7 Gordon Tullock, Rent- Seeking and Government Failure
• Setting the stage: government without angels
• Rent- seeking: the welfare costs of tariffs,monopolies and theft
• Corruption, slack and bureaucracy
• Political agency, constraint and selection
• Assessment
• Chapter 8 Anthony Downs (again) and The Economics of Information and Voter Choice
• Setting the stage: motivation, information and rational choice
• Rational ignorance
• Low- information rationality
• Rational irrationality
• Expressive voting
• Assessment
• Chapter 9 Rational Choice Explanation
• Introduction
• Positivism and explanation through laws
• All other things being equal: tendency laws and the inexact (social) sciences
• Scientific realism and the search for mechanisms
• The place of rational choice theory in political science
• Bibliography
• Index