This note seeks to steer a path between the scylla of dogmatic faith that rational choice models can explain all aspects of human behavior, borrowed from economists such as Gary Becker, and the charybdis of some recent political science work that argues the view that rational choice `has no clothes' and is useless in explaining human behavior. I take what I, along with my colleague Bernard Grofman, identify as the `reasonable choice' view.
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Cook, Karen Schweers
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Fiorina, Morris (1990) `Elections and the Economy in the 1980s'. Department of Government, Harvard University, Occasional paper 90-5.
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Green, Donald P.
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Grofman, B.
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6.
Grofman, Bernard
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(1996) `Downsian Political Economy', in Robert Goodin and Hans Dieter Klingemann (eds), The New Handbook Of Political Science, pp. 691-701. New York: Oxford University Press.
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Hanks, Christopher
and Bernard Grofman (1998) `Turnout in Gubernatorial and Senatorial Primary and General Elections in the South, 1922-90: A Rational Choice Model of the Effects of Short-run and Long-run Electoral Competition on Turnout'. Public Choice,94: 407-421.
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Mansbridge, Jane J.
(ed.) (1990) Beyond Self-Interest. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
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(1995) Critical Review9Nos. 1-2 (Winter-Spring).