Voting choice and rational choice
McGann, Anthony; Thompson, William, ed. (2016) Voting choice and rational choice. In: Oxford Research Encyclopaedia of Politics. Oxford Research Encyclopaedias . Oxford University Press, [New York]. (https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190228637.013...)
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Rational choice theory may seem like a separate theoretical approach with its own forbidding mathematics. However, the central assumptions of rational choice theory are very similar to those in mainstream political behavior and even interpretive sociology. Indeed, many of the statistical methods used in empirical political behavior assume axiomatic models of voter choice. When we consider individual voting behavior, the contribution of rational choice has been to formalize what empirical political scientists do anyway, and provide some new tools. However, it is when we consider collective voting choice—what elections mean and what kind of policy outcomes result—that rational choice leads to new, counterintuitive insights. Rational choice also has a normative dimension. Without voter rationality the traditional understanding of democracy as popular choice makes little sense.
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Item type: Book Section ID code: 67405 Dates: DateEvent1 July 2016PublishedSubjects: Political Science Department: Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences (HaSS) > Government and Public Policy > Politics Depositing user: Pure Administrator Date deposited: 21 Mar 2019 15:39 Last modified: 08 Apr 2024 13:52 Related URLs: URI: https://strathprints.strath.ac.uk/id/eprint/67405