The main peak of the crisis of behaviorism, structural-functional analysis and other main methodological trends occurred in the 60-70s. These years were full of attempts to find a new methodological basis for further research. Scientists have tried to do this in different ways:

1. update the "classical" methodological approaches (the emergence of post-behavioral methodological trends, neo-institutionalism, etc.);

2. create a system of "middle level" theories and try to use these theories as a methodological basis;

3. try to create an equivalent of a general theory by referring to classical political theories;

4. turn to Marxism and create on the basis of this various kinds of technocratic theories.

These years are characterized by the emergence of a number of methodological theories that claim to be the "grand theory". One of such theories, one of such methodological directions was the theory of rational choice.

Rational choice theory was designed to overcome the shortcomings of behaviorism, structural-functional analysis and institutionalism, creating a theory of political behavior in which a person would act as an independent, active political actor, a theory that would allow looking at a person’s behavior “from the inside”, taking into account the nature of his attitudes, choice of optimal behavior, etc.

The theory of rational choice came to political science from economic science. The “founding fathers” of the theory of rational choice are considered to be E. Downes (he formulated the main provisions of the theory in his work “The Economic Theory of Democracy”), D. Black (introduced the concept of preferences into political science, described the mechanism for their translation into performance results), G. Simon (substantiated the concept of bounded rationality and demonstrated the possibilities of applying the rational choice paradigm), as well as L. Chapley, M. Shubik, V. Riker, M. Olson, J. Buchanan, G. Tulloch (developed "game theory"). It took about ten years before rational choice theory became widespread in political science.

Proponents of rational choice theory proceed from the following methodological assumptions:

First, methodological individualism, that is, the recognition that social and political structures, politics, and society as a whole are secondary to the individual. It is the individual who produces institutions and relationships through his activity. Therefore, the interests of the individual are determined by him, as well as the order of preferences.

Secondly, the selfishness of the individual, that is, his desire to maximize his own benefit. This does not mean that a person will necessarily behave like an egoist, but even if he behaves like an altruist, then this method is most likely more beneficial for him than others. This applies not only to the behavior of an individual, but also to his behavior in a group when he is not bound by special personal attachments.

Proponents of the theory of rational choice believe that the voter decides whether to come to the polls or not, depending on how he evaluates the benefits of his vote, and also votes based on rational considerations of utility. He can manipulate his political settings if he sees that he may not get a win. Political parties in elections also try to maximize their benefits by enlisting the support of as many voters as possible. Deputies form committees, guided by the need to pass this or that bill, their people to the government, and so on. The bureaucracy in its activities is guided by the desire to increase its organization and its budget, and so on.

Thirdly, the rationality of individuals, that is, their ability to arrange their preferences in accordance with their maximum benefit. As E. Downes wrote, "every time we talk about rational behavior, we mean rational behavior, initially directed towards selfish goals." In this case, the individual correlates the expected results and costs and, trying to maximize the result, tries to minimize costs at the same time. Since the rationalization of behavior and the assessment of the ratio of benefits and costs require the possession of significant information, and its receipt is associated with an increase in overall costs, then one speaks of "limited rationality" of the individual. This bounded rationality has more to do with the decision-making procedure itself than with the essence of the decision itself.

Fourth, the exchange of activities. Individuals in society do not act alone, there is an interdependence of people's choices. The behavior of each individual is carried out in certain institutional conditions, that is, under the influence of institutions. These institutional conditions themselves are created by people, but the initial one is people's consent to the exchange of activities. In the process of activity, individuals rather do not adapt to institutions, but try to change them in accordance with their interests. Institutions, in turn, can change the order of preferences, but this only means that the changed order turned out to be beneficial for political actors under the given conditions.

Most often, the political process within the framework of the rational choice paradigm is described in the form of public choice theory, or in the form of game theory.

Proponents of the theory of public choice proceed from the fact that in the group the individual behaves selfishly and rationally. He will not voluntarily make special efforts to achieve common goals, but will try to use public goods for free (the “hare” phenomenon in public transport). This is because the nature of a collective good includes such characteristics as non-excludability (that is, no one can be excluded from the use of a public good) and non-rivalry (the consumption of this good by a large number of people does not lead to a decrease in its utility).

Proponents of game theory proceed from the fact that the political struggle for gain, as well as the assumptions of rational choice theory about the universality of such qualities of political actors as selfishness and rationality, make the political process similar to a game with a zero or non-zero sum. As is known from the course of general political science, game theory describes the interaction of actors through a certain set of game scenarios. The purpose of such an analysis is to search for such game conditions under which participants choose certain behavior strategies, for example, that are beneficial to all participants at once.

This methodological approach is not free from some shortcomings. One of these shortcomings is the insufficient consideration of social and cultural-historical factors influencing the individual's behavior. The authors of this manual are far from agreeing with researchers who believe that the political behavior of an individual is largely a function of the social structure or with those who argue that the political behavior of actors is in principle incomparable, because it occurs within the framework of unique national conditions and etc. However, it is obvious that the rational choice model does not take into account the influence of the sociocultural environment on the preferences, motivation and behavioral strategy of political actors, and does not take into account the influence of the specifics of political discourse.

Another shortcoming has to do with the assumption of rational choice theorists about the rationality of behavior. The point is not only that individuals can behave like altruists, and not only that they can have limited information, imperfect qualities. These nuances, as shown above, are explained by the rational choice theory itself. First of all, we are talking about the fact that often people act irrationally under the influence of short-term factors, under the influence of affect, guided, for example, by momentary impulses.

As D. Easton rightly points out, the broad interpretation of rationality proposed by the supporters of the theory under consideration leads to the blurring of this concept. More fruitful for solving the problems posed by the representatives of rational choice theory would be to single out types of political behavior depending on its motivation. In particular, “social-oriented” behavior in the interests of “social solidarity” differs significantly from rational and selfish behavior.

In addition, rational choice theory is often criticized for some technical inconsistencies arising from the main provisions, as well as for the limited explanatory possibilities (for example, the applicability of the model of party competition proposed by its supporters only to countries with a two-party system). However, a significant part of such criticism either stems from a misinterpretation of the work of representatives of this theory, or is refuted by the representatives of rational choice theory themselves (for example, with the help of the concept of "bounded" rationality).

Despite these shortcomings, rational choice theory has a number of virtues which are the reason for its great popularity. The first undoubted advantage is that standard methods of scientific research are used here. The analyst formulates hypotheses or theorems based on a general theory. The method of analysis used by supporters of rational choice theory proposes the construction of theorems that include alternative hypotheses about the intentions of political actors. The researcher then subjects these hypotheses or theorems to empirical testing. If reality does not disprove theorems, that theorem or hypothesis is considered relevant. If the test results are unsuccessful, the researcher draws the appropriate conclusions and repeats the procedure again. The use of this technique allows the researcher to draw a conclusion about what actions of people, institutional structures and the results of the exchange of activities will be most likely under certain conditions. Thus, rational choice theory solves the problem of verifying theoretical propositions by testing scientists' assumptions about the intentions of political subjects.

As the well-known political scientist K. von Boime rightly notes, the success of rational choice theory in political science can be generally explained by the following reasons:

1. “neopositivist requirements for the use of deductive methods in political science are most easily satisfied with the help of formal models, on which this methodological approach is based

2. The rational choice approach can be applied to the analysis of any type of behavior - from the actions of the most selfish rationalist to the infinitely altruistic activity of Mother Teresa, who maximized the strategy of helping the disadvantaged

3. directions of political science, which are on the middle level between micro- and macrotheories, are forced to recognize the possibility of an approach based on the analysis of activity ( political subjects– E.M., O.T.) actors. The actor in the concept of rational choice is a construction that allows you to avoid the question of the real unity of the individual

4. rational choice theory promotes the use of qualitative and cumulative ( mixed - E.M., O.T.) approaches in political science

5. The rational choice approach acted as a kind of counterbalance to the dominance of behavioral research in previous decades. It is easy to combine it with multi-level analysis (especially when studying the realities of the countries of the European Union) and with ... neo-institutionalism, which became widespread in the 80s.

Rational choice theory has a fairly wide scope. It is used to analyze the behavior of voters, parliamentary activity and coalition formation, international relations, etc., and is widely used in modeling political processes.

discursive approach.

The concept of discourse is very ambiguous (from the Latin - discursus- reasoning, argument, argument), it is often used as a synonym for the word "text". Moreover, the text was sometimes understood not only as a specific product of speech activity, but also the widest range of phenomena of reality, structured in a special way and carrying a semantic load.

In science, there are many definitions of concepts discourse, political discourse. With their diversity, one can distinguish two main approaches .

The first approach is broader, and here under discourse understood fragments of reality that have a temporal duration, logic and represent a complete composition formed on the basis of the organization of meanings (a completed “work”, for example, in the form of a text) using a semantic code (dictionary, etc.).

Representatives of another, narrower approach interpret discourse as a special kind of communication: "Discourseis a communicative event that occurs between the speaker, listener (observer, etc.) in the process of communicative action in a certain temporal, spatial, etc. context. This communicative action can be verbal, written, have verbal and non-verbal components.» .

If we apply this approach to the analysis of social and political phenomena, then the discourse will not define interpersonal dialogue as a “speech event”, but “social dialogue that takes place through and through social institutions between individuals, groups and also between the social institutions themselves involved in this dialogue."

In general, representatives of the theory of discourse distinguish two aspects of this phenomenon:

1. discourse is a frame, a "generating system" (J. Poccock, K. Skinner). The terms "language", "ideology" are often used to refer to this phenomenon; it is in this sense that one speaks of the discourse of liberalism, conservatism, and so on.

2. specific discourse - a discourse-work that has a certain plot, for example, the discourse of the presidential elections in the Russian Federation in 2000.

In the applied, “technical” sense, discourse means a written, speech or figurative manifestation of an object (broad interpretation of discourse), or communication (narrow interpretation). In this case, speeches, texts, interviews, conversations, debates, etc. are analyzed.

Discourse theory is a relatively new approach in political science, although it has deep roots in the philosophical tradition. In the twentieth century, the concept of discourse began to be widely used in the linguistic sciences. Since the mid 50s. Intensive use of the term begins in philosophy, and later in other social sciences, including political sciences. This process was facilitated deepening interest in linguistics and language problems generally.

This interest is due to two groups factors: external for science (objective social needs) and internal (the logic of the development of science itself).

External factors were associated with the expansion of the scope of language in the public, incl. political life. Thanks to the development of the mass media, language permeates all areas of social life, becoming a real social force, a powerful tool of influence and manipulation. In addition, the nature of social processes influenced the growing interest in the language: the rethinking of language problems, as a rule, is characteristic of periods of social upheaval, which were the 60-70s. Socio-political transformations, as a rule, are accompanied by a change in the attitude of various social groups towards the word, language, and culture. The changes that have taken place require reflection. Traditional ideas cannot explain the new reality, and therefore there is a need for a new worldview, new concepts and terminology.

internal a factor was the accumulation of new empirical data, which contributed to a change in attitudes towards language in the humanities. Traditionally, language has been viewed as a product of culture that emerges in the course of mastering reality; as a coordinator of activities, translator of experience and knowledge between generations (language - an object culture). Gradually, a different idea arises, in which the language acts not only as a product, but also condition culture, its means, which is not only subject to external influence, but also has the opposite effect, forms and structures the environment (language turns into subject culture).

The foundations of the theory of political discourse were laid by representatives of the Cambridge and Oxford philosophical schools in the 50s. 20th century, who analyzed the linguistic context of social thought. One of the first studies of political discourse was the serial publication of P. Lasle "Philosophy, Politics and Society", launched in 1956. In the 70s. the term "discourses" is beginning to be widely used in the analysis of political processes. In the 80s. there is a center of semiotic research associated with the analysis of discourses. It concentrates around T. Van Dyck. The researchers of the center are beginning to pay attention not only to the content aspects, but also to the technique of analyzing political discourse. From this point on, we can talk about the formation of an independent methodological approach to the analysis of political processes.

To study political discourse, representatives of this methodological direction widely use the methods of semiotic analysis (study of the discourse-frame), as well as rhetoric and literary criticism (analysis of a specific discourse-work).

Exploring the discourse-frame (languages), scientists identify different levels of organization of the political discourse-frame. In particular, such levels are dictionaries, a simple language that allows the existence of one point of view on the phenomenon and a generally accepted meaning, a complex language that allows the existence of many points of view and subjective meanings, as well as a myth.

One of the most developed areas of analysis within the framework of this approach is the contextual analysis of political discourse, or rather its individual components. As a result of such a contextual analysis, the features of the meanings of individual components of political discourse are revealed, which are formed under the influence of factors external to it (socio-economic, cultural and political conditions). At the same time, it is recognized that discourse is not a simple reflection of processes taking place in other areas of the social world, for example, in the economy. It combines the semantic elements and practices of all spheres of public life. The concept of articulation is used to explain the process of its construction. Combining, heterogeneous elements form a new construction, new meanings, a new series of meanings or discourse. For example, the Labor government that came to power in England in the 1950s built its program using various ideological components: the welfare state, the promise of universal employment, the Keynesian model of government, the nationalization of certain industries, support for entrepreneurship, the cold war. This strategy was not just an expression of the interests of certain social strata of society, a response to changes in the economy; it was the result of the combination of various political, ideological and economic models, as a result of which a new discourse was constructed.

Appeal in the analysis of the discourse-work to the achievements of rhetoric and literary criticism involves, first of all, the use of methods related to the analysis of the plot. Here there are well-established schemes and models that allow one to present individual political events and processes (a rally, an election process, etc.) as a discourse with its own plot, meanings and other parameters and to predict its development. Much attention is paid to the study of alternative plots based on one original model, as well as to the study of plots with open ends. This technique and technology makes it possible to obtain good results in the analysis of the political process as a dynamic characteristic of politics.

The practical application of the theory of discourse can be demonstrated by the example of the analysis of Thatcherism (S. Hall). The Thatcherism project consisted of two, in many respects, mutually exclusive spheres of ideas and theories: these are elements of neoliberal ideology (the concepts of “personal interests”, “monetarism”, “competition” were articulated), and elements of conservative ideology (“nation”, “family” , "duty", "authority", "power", "traditions"). It was based on a combination of free market politics and a strong state. Around the term "collectivism", which did not fit into the framework of this project, the ideologists of Thatcherism built a whole chain of associations, which led to the emergence of social rejection of this concept. Collectivism in the mass consciousness has become associated with socialism, stagnation, inefficient management, the power of not the state, but trade unions to the detriment of state interests. The result of this policy was the introduction of the notion that social institutions built in accordance with the ideology of "collectivism" are responsible for the crisis state of the economy and prolonged stagnation in society. Thatcherism became associated with individual freedoms and personal enterprise, the moral and political rejuvenation of British society, the restoration of law and order.

One of the directions of the analysis of political discourse is the postmodern approach. It is impossible not to mention postmodernism in discursive analysis due to the fact that this direction is becoming more and more widespread in the social sciences, including political science, and is considered one of the “fashionable” areas of social and political analysis. Let us dwell briefly on its characteristics.

When analyzing political discourse, postmodernists proceed from the following parcels. They deny the possibility of the existence of a single and shared image of reality that can be accurately studied and explained. The world around us is created by the beliefs and behavior of people. As ideas spread, people begin to believe in them and act on them. Being enshrined in certain rules, norms, institutions and mechanisms of social control, these ideas thereby create reality.

Most representatives of this trend believe that meanings must be sought not in the surrounding external world, but only in language, which is a mechanism for creating and broadcasting individual ideas. Therefore, the study of language is declared the main task of science. The need to understand how the formation and construction of objects of reality takes place is proclaimed; the only way to achieve this goal is considered to be the interpretation of the language through the text. At the same time, language is often regarded as an exceptional subject that forms people's ideas about the world around them.

According to representatives of the postmodern direction, to understand the discourse, it is enough to analyze only the text itself. At the same time, the conditions of its writing, its history, personality, knowledge of the author's abilities, etc. are ignored. That is, the meanings and meanings contained in the text belong neither to the context, nor to the author, nor to the reader, nor to history, but only to the text. Most postmodernists believe that any reader of the text is able to offer a reliable interpretation of it, the reliability of the interpretation depends solely on subjective perception. As D. Easton rightly notes, “this perspective destroys both objectivity and subjectivity; the text speaks for itself, the dialogue is not between people, not between the author and the reader.

Some postmodernists, believing that all meanings and meanings are in the text, argue that there is no reality outside the language. Thus, the existence of a basis external to the researcher, on which scientific knowledge can be based, is rejected.

Although this position seems to apply only to language, many postmodernists use it to analyze behavior. They believe that human behavior is "constructed" like text; we "read" the behavior as well as the sentence. Behavior contains meaning in and about itself. At the same time, the intentions of the actor do not affect the meaning of his behavior, just as the intentions of the author do not apply to the text. The circumstances under the influence of which the action is carried out are also not taken into account. There is no analysis of the socio-economic context, motivation, cultural orientations, social structure and other variables that explain behavior. Thus, the possibilities for an authentic "reading" of action within the framework of postmodernism also turn out to be at a low level, as well as the possibilities for "reading" texts.

Thus, within the framework of postmodernism, there is no full-fledged analysis of political discourse, since only its subjective meanings received by researchers are subjected to analysis. In this regard, it is significant that within the framework of postmodernism, the concept of discourse is not even defined, although the term itself is used quite widely. In general, the postmodern approach to the analysis of political discourse cannot be considered particularly fruitful, although there is no doubt that a lot of factual material is analyzed within this direction, the appeal to which is of undoubted interest for further research on political discourse.

Similar information.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article is about the theory of economics. For rational choice theory as applied to forensic science, see rational choice theory (criminology).

Rational Choice Theory, also known as choice theory or rational action theory, is the basis for understanding and often formally modeling socio-economic behavior. The basic premise of rational choice theory is that aggregate social behavior is the result of the behavior of individual actors, each of which makes its own individual decisions. The theory also focuses on the determinants of individual choice (methodological individualism).

Rational choice theory then assumes that an individual has preferences among the available choices that allow them to specify which option they prefer. These preferences are not considered complete (a person can always say which of the two alternatives they consider preferable or which is preferable to the other) and transitional (if option A is preferable than option B and option B is preferable to option C, then A is preferable than C ). A rational agent is expected to take into account available information, probabilities of events, and potential costs and benefits in determining preferences, and act consistently in choosing a self-determined best course of action.

Rationality is widely used as an assumption about human behavior in microeconomic models and analysis, and appears in almost all economics textbooks of human decision making procedures. It is also used in political science, sociology, and philosophy. A specific variant of rationality is instrumental rationality, which involves finding the most cost-effective means to achieve a particular goal without thinking about the merit of that goal. Gary Becker was an early proponent of applying the actor's rational models more widely. Becker won the 1992 Nobel Prize in Economics for his research on discrimination, crime, and human capital.

Definition and scope

The concept of rationality used in rational choice theory differs from the colloquial and most philosophical use of the word. Colloquially, "rational" behavior usually means "reasonable", "predictable", or "in a thoughtful, sober manner." Rational choice theory uses a narrower definition of rationality. At the most basic level, behavior is rational if it is purposeful, reflective (evaluative), and consistent (during and across choice situations). This contrasts with behavior that is random, impulsive, conditioned or adopted (unevaluative) imitation.

The preference between the two alternatives could be:

• Strict Preference happens when a person prefers more 1 s on the 2 and not not treat them as equally preferred.
• weak preference it follows that the individual either strongly prefers 1 over 2 or indifferent between them.
• Indifference happens when a person prefers on the 1 to in 2 nor 2 to 1 . Since (in fullness) a person is notrefusescomparisons, they must therefore be indifferent in this case.

Research that took off in the 1980s sought to develop models that drop these assumptions and argue that such behavior can still be rational, Anand (1993). This work, often carried out by theoretical economists and analytic philosophers, suggests, in the final analysis, that the assumptions or axioms above are not entirely at all and can perhaps at best be regarded as approximate.

Additional Assumptions

• Perfect Information A: The simple rational choice model above assumes that a person has complete or perfect information about the alternatives, that is, ranking between two options does not involve uncertainty.
• Choice under Uncertainty: In a richer model that includes uncertainty in how choices (actions) lead to possible outcomes, a person actually chooses between lotteries, where each lottery elicits a different probability distribution over the outcomes. The additional assumption of the independence of extraneous alternatives then leads to expected utility theory.
• Intertemporal Choice: When decisions affect choice (eg consumption) at different points in time, the standard method for evaluating alternatives over time involves discounting the future payoff.
• Limited cognitive ability A: Determining and weighing each alternative against any other can take some time, effort and brain power. Recognizing that these costs impose or cognitively limit individuals leads to the theory of bounded rationality.

Alternative theories of human action include components such as Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman's perspective theory, which reflects the empirical finding that, in contrast to the standard preferences assumed by neoclassical economics, people place added value on objects they already have. is compared with similar articles owned by others. According to standard preference, the amount a person is willing to pay for a product (such as a drinking mug) is considered equal to the amount he or she is willing to pay to part with it. In experiments, the latter price is sometimes significantly higher than the former (but see Plott and Zeiler 2005, Plott and Zeiler 2007 and Klass and Zeiler, 2013). Tversky and Kahneman do not characterize loss as irrational aversion. Behavioral economics includes a large number of other changes to his picture of human behavior that go against neoclassical assumptions.

utility maximization

Often preferences are described by their utility features or payoff functions. This is a serial number that a person assigns over available actions, such as:

the individual's preferences are then expressed as a ratio between these ordinal tasks. For example, if a person prefers candidate Sarah over Roger for abstinence, their preference would be related to:

The preference relation, which, as stated above, satisfies completeness, transitivity, and, moreover, continuity, can be equivalently represented by a utility function.

criticism

Both assumptions and behavioral predictions of rational choice theory have drawn criticism from various camps. As mentioned above, some economists have developed models of bounded rationality that hope to be more psychologically plausible without completely abandoning the idea that reason underlies decision processes. Other economists have developed several theories of human decision making, which allow for the role of uncertainty and the determination of individual tastes according to their socioeconomic conditions (see Fernandez-Huerga, 2008).

Other social scientists, inspired in part by Bourdieu's thinking, have expressed concern about the misuse of economic metaphors in other contexts, suggesting that this may have political implications. The argument they make is that by treating everything as a kind of "economy", they make a particular vision of the way the economy works seems more natural. Thus, they assume, rational choice is as much ideological as it is scientific, which does not in itself negate its scientific usefulness.

The evolutionary psychology perspective is that many of the apparent contradictions and biases regarding rational choice can be explained rationally in the context of maximizing biological fitness in the ancestral environment, but not necessarily in the current one. Thus, when living at the subsistence level, where diminishing resources may have meant death, it may have been rational to place more value on losses than on gains. Proponents argue that this could also explain the differences between the groups.

Benefits

The choice approach allows rational preferences to be represented as real utility functions. The economic decision-making process becomes the problem of maximizing this

Utility maximization rule

Critics of the theory of marginal utility have formulated the paradox of water and diamonds. They believed that water should have maximum usefulness, since it is vital, and diamonds should be minimal, since one can live without them. Therefore, the price of water must be higher than that of diamonds.

This contradiction was resolved in the following way. In nature, water reserves are not limited, and diamonds are rare. Therefore, the total utility of water is large, but the marginal utility is small, while for diamonds, on the contrary, the total utility is small, and the marginal utility is large. The price is determined not by the total, but by the marginal utility. The relationship between marginal utility and price can be illustrated by the following formula:

where MU x , MU y , MU z– marginal utilities of goods; P x , R y , R z is the price of these goods.

This ratio shows utility maximization rule: the income of the consumer should be distributed in such a way that the last ruble spent on the acquisition of each type of goods would bring the same marginal utility. For example, a consumer wants to buy three goods BUT, AT, With to meet your needs. Assume that the marginal utility of a good BUT is 100 utils, good B– 80 utils, boons With- 45 utils. At the same time, the price of a good BUT equal to 100 rubles, good B- 40 rubles, benefits With- 30 rubles. Let's present these data in tab. 4.2.

Table 4.2

Marginal Utility and the Price of Goods

As can be seen from the table, the distribution of the consumer's money does not bring him maximum utility, since the rule of utility maximization is not observed in this case. Because good AT brings the maximum weighted utility (i.e., marginal utility per 1 ruble of costs), then the funds must be distributed in such a way as to increase the amount of consumption of good B and reduce the consumption of good BUT. In this case, the utility maximization rule must be satisfied.

The consumer should discard the last copy of the good BUT, and purchase with the saved 100 rubles. 2.5 parts of the good AT. As a result, we obtain the following relation (Table 4.3).

Table 4.3

Consumer equilibrium in cardinal theory

Having thus distributed the monetary income among the goods BUT, AT and With, the consumer will be able to extract the maximum satisfaction of their needs.