Theory of practice,rational choice,and historical change

If we are to believe the proponents of the Theory of Practice and of Rational Choice, the gap between these two paradigmatic approaches cannot be bridged. They rely on ontological premises, theories of motivations and causal models that stand too far apart. In this article, I argue that this theoretical antinomy loses much of its edge when we take as objects of sociological investigation processes of historical change, that is, when we try to specify in theoretical terms how and in which conditions historical actors enact and endorse shifts in patterns of relations as well as shifts in the symbolic and cognitive categories that make these relations significant. I substantiate this argument in light of the distinction between two temporalities of historical change: first, the long waves of gradual change and, second, the short waves of moments of breaks and ruptures. Along the way, I develop an argument about the conditions of emergence of self-limiting norms and the centrality of epistemic beliefs in situations of high disruption.     

Socio-economics and rational choice theory: Specification of their relations

In this paper an attempt is made to put the relationship between socio-economics and rational choice theory into proper perspective. The attempt is motivated by some recent confusions between the two. In particular, there is a tendency among the adherents of rational choice theory to subsume socio-economics and, for that matter, social science as a whole under their theory. On the other hand, many socio-economists or economic sociologists evince some degree of lenience vis-à-vis rational choice theory as if the latter were fully compatible with their discipline. We show that the rational choice reduction of socio-economics and sister disciplines (e.g., economic sociology) to the “economic approach to human behavior” or to a utilitarian paradigm of socio-economic life, is theoretically and methodologically untenable, and thus that many socio-economists' generous attitude to rational choice theory is not entirely justified.     

On limitations of rational choice theory for sociology

I have criticized rational choice theory, not for confining its analysis to rational behavior in which individuals adapt means to the attainment of their ends, for which it is often criticized, but from a different perspective. The reason is that much individual behavior, though not all, entails rational pursuit of self-interests and that it is legitimate for a theory to confine itself to explaining some aspect of empirical reality and exclude others. The focus of my criticism has rather been that the central task of sociology is not explaining individual behavior but explaining how the structural context of the social environment influences people's life chances.     

Exclusive representation and american industrial democracy: An historical reappraisal

Exclusive representation in the public sector has been defended on the basis of private sector experience, which purportedly demonstrates that stable, orderly, peaceful collective bargaining is otherwise impossible or impracticable. Nevertheless, nonexclusive collective bargaining was the norm in most industrial nations when the Wagner Act was passed in the 1930s, and it still is the rule outside the U.S. Historical evidence is presented for the thesis that exclusivity was adopted in the private sector primarily in order to pave the way for a corporative state. Peaceful, orderly collective bargaining by “responsible” unions in a competitive economy was a minor, secondary consideration. Editor’s Note: This Symposium was jointly sponsored by theJournal of Labor Research and the National Institute for Labor Relations Research and was held February 10, 1984 at the Westpark Hotel, Rosslyn, Virginia.     

Freedom of choice and rational decisions

The paper formalizes a notion of preference-based freedom and examines to which extent such a notion is consistent with otherwise standard conditions of rational decision making. The central result is as follows. Suppose that a preference-based ranking of opportunity sets satisfies a very mild condition of preference for freedom of choice. Then, either the ranking is degenerate in being discontinuous, or the underlying preference relation among the basic alternatives is incomplete. Hence, in any case preference-based rankings of freedom will violate at least some of the basic assumptions of traditional choice modelling. This conclusion is enhanced if the conditions on preference-based freedom are slightly strengthened.I would like to thank the participants of seminars held at the Universities of Karlsruhe and Vienna for valuable comments and stimulating discussions. I am especially indebted to Thomas Christ, Egbert Dierker, Georg Kirchsteiger, Dieter Puppe and anonymous referees for helpful comments. The research has been made possible by a fellowship of the DFG (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft) which is also gratefully acknowledged.     

The place of rational choice in criminology and risk analysis

The danger in both criminology and risk analysis is that rational choice will be embraced uncritically and without examination of its subtleties, boundaries, and limitations; its dependency on context, its relationship to what is seen (and not seen), what is understood and what is not understood, its embeddedness in both personal and organizational life. That is a challenge worthy of all the social and behavioral sciences.     

Social choice theory and the “Centre de Mathématique Sociale”: some historical notes

In this paper we describe some research directions in social choice and aggregation theory taken at the “Centre de Mathématique Sociale” since the fifties. We begin by presenting some institutional aspects concerning this center. Then we sketch a thematic history by considering the following questions about the “effet Condorcet” (“voting paradox”): What is it? How is it overcome? Why does it occur? These questions were adressed in Guilbaud's paper (Guilbaud GTh (1952) Les théories de l'intérêt général et le problème logique de l'agrégation, (Theories of the general interest and the logical problem of aggregation) which will mark the beginning of our inquiry. The conclusion outlines some more recent research developments linked to these questions.     

Pragmatism and the untenable dualism of means and ends: Why rational choice theory does not deserve paradigmatic privilege

Theory and Society -     

Arrow's paradox and mathematical theory of democracy

Two measures, the weight of coalitions and the probability of situations in decision making, are used to characterize the representativeness, i.e. the capability of individuals to represent the social preference. It is proved that there always exists an individual who represents a majority on average, and an individual who represents a majority in most cases. This result is applied to Arrow's social choice model. It follows that there always exists a dictator who is a representative of the society rather than a dictator in a proper sense. After the concept of dictator has been refined to a dictator in a proper sense, Arrow's axioms become consistent. The idea of optimal representation is extended to limited groups of representatives which make decisions on behalf of the whole society. We consider the cabinet (named by analogy with the cabinet of ministers) which consists of a few representatives with delimited domains of competence, and the council which makes decisions by means of voting. It is shown that the representativeness of optimal cabinets and councils tends to 100% of maximally possible values as the number of their members increases, independently of the size of the society. We suggest a geometric interpretation of optimal representatives, cabinets, and councils, based on approximation formulas for the indicators of representativeness derived for the model with a large number of independent individuals. Finally, for cabinets and councils we establish the consistency of different concepts of optimality with respect to different indicators of representativeness. Our consideration is applicable to multicriteria decision making. An appointment of a cabinet or a council corresponds to selecting a few partial criteria. Therefore, the obtained results can be used for reducing the set of partial criteria to a certain sufficient minimum. The concepts of dictator, cabinet, and council can be understood as models of president, government, and parliament, respectively. Thus our results justify reducing social choice to individual choice or small group choice. Although it is in use in all democratic systems, its acceptability is not evident at all. In other words, we justify the demoncraticity of such forms of political power as the president, the parliament, and the government.     

The theory of the avant-garde: an historical critique*

L'auteur critique l'incapacité de penser le processus de reconnaissance sociale de l'art dans les théories de l'avant-garde proposées par Bürger et Poggioli. Sans cette dimension, leurs théories reposent sur une tautologie. Tout en reconnaissant l'apport que constitue la sociologie du goût élaborée par Bourdieu, l'auteur signale la préoccupation préponderante qu'accorde cette analyse à la stabilité des structures du champ artistique, préoccupation qui la conduit a renoncer aux prétentions de comprendre les conditions historiques de la naissance et de l'évolution des avant-gardes au sein dcs sociétés occidentales. The author criticizes the theories of the avant-garde advanced by Bürger and Poggioli for their incapacity to theorize the process of social recognition of art. Without this dimension, their theories are based on a tautology. While recognising the positive contribution of Bourdieu's sociology of taste, the author notes that this approach has emphasized the stability of the structural determinations of the art world and seems to have sacrificed the ambition of previous theories of the avant-garde to understand the historical conditions of its appearance and evolution in Western societies.     

Social choice theory in the case of von Neumann-Morgenstern utilities

Part I of this paper offers a novel result in social choice theory by extending Harsanyi's well-known utilitarian theorem into a multi-profile context. Harsanyi was contented with showing that if the individuals' utilities u _i are von Neumann-Morgenstern, and if the given utility u of the social planner is VNM as well, then the Pareto indifference rule implies that u is affine in terms of the u _i. We provide a related conclusion by considering u as functionally dependent on the u _i, through a suitably restricted social welfare functional (u ₁,...,u _n)u=f(u ₁,...,u _n). We claim that this result is more in accordance with contemporary social choice theory than Harsanyi's single-profile theorem is. Besides, harsanyi's initial proof of the latter was faulty. Part II of this paper offers an alternative argument which is intended to be both general and simple enough, contrary to the recent proofs published by Fishburn and others. It finally investigates the affine independence problem on the u _i discussed by Fishburn as a corollary to harsanyi's theorem.The authors are indebted to L. Haddad, A. Sen and two anonymous referees for useful written comments. They also benefited from stimulating remarks in seminars and helpful conversations with their colleagues. The usual caveat of course applies. One of the authors acknowledges partial financial support from the ARI Communication of the C.N.R.S., Paris.     

Invariance axioms for preferences: applications to social choice theory

I investigate the role played by the combination of two invariance axioms for preferences in utility theory; namely, those of zero-independence and scale-independence, respectively. I provide a characterization of the preference relations on ${\mathbb{R}^{n}}$ that satisfy these two axioms as those which are either trivial, or what I call a two-serial total preorder on ${\mathbb{R}^{n}}$ . This result is then applied in social choice theory to characterize those social welfare functions that satisfy IIA and PI. Other characterizations involving the usual Pareto concepts are also provided.     

Sociology and game theory: Contemporary and historical perspectives

Theory and Society -     

The relation of theory and method: causal relatedness,historical contingency and beyond

This paper critically scrutinizes the thesis put forward by Jennifer Platt in a recent article in The Sociological Review about the general relation between theory and method, based on her investigation of the specific example of functionalism and survey research in post-war US sociology. The present paper questions the extent to which Platt's analysis and general conclusions mask important levels of connectedness between theory and method.     

The Chinese non government agricultural work-study school: a case of participatory democracy

Ce document examine le mouvement de la Chine de lancer ses citoyens au devéloppement d'éducation pendant le "grand bond en avant" de 1958–59. Comme à l'ouest, la participation est justifiée sur la base démocratique. Contraire à l'ouest, ce n'était pas autant une technique d'organization de cadres, qu'une stratégie du développement nationale. Comme une partie saillante du procès de développement. l'école du travail détudes était ouverte à l'influence non seulement par le système d'éducation, mais aussi par la grande société.
This paper examines China's attempt to involve her citizens in educational development during the Great Leap Forward, 1958–59. As in the West, participation was justified on the grounds of democracy. Unlike the West, it was not so much a technique of organizational management as a strategy of national development. As a salient part of the developmental process, the work-study school was open to influence not only from within the educational system but also from the larger society.     

From comparative historical analysis to “local theory”: The Italian city-state route to the modern state

Many explanations have been offered for why the dominant city-states of Italy declined, giving way to the larger, national states of Western Europe. Some, like World Systems theorists, have seen the decline of the Italian city-states as the result of the shift of trade from the Mediterranean to the Atlantic, while others, like Richard Lachmann, have focused on institutional arrangements that rendered these systems less resilient when faced by external threats. This article focuses on the relations of local institutions with the interests of capital, and on the role of contentious politics within the city-state that developed as a result of this interaction. Taking as my starting point the comparative historical analysis of statebuilding in the work of Charles Tilly, in Coercion, Capital and European States, the article places contentious politics as a bridge between the Tillian categories of capital-domination and statebuilding, using the case of Florence in the late 14th and early 15th centuries to etch the skeleton of that bridge. With Tilly, I argue that the class interests of the urban elites that were built directly into the mechanisms of city-state politics worked at cross-purposes to the collective requirements of statebuilding. Next, I argue that Tilly pays too little attention to the specificities of the Italian case and gives short shrift to its internal political processes. Finally, I argue that class domination working through institutional conflicts led to periodic outbursts of conflict and built a lack of trust into the structure of governance. I conclude by suggesting why the Italian city-states, at least, were inhibited from taking the nation-state route to the modern world until quite late in their histories.