Theory Critique of Bureaucratic Politics on Public Administration and Public Policy: Rational choice theory

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Table of Contents

Introduction
Rational Choice Theory in Politics
Institutions and Identities
Voting As a Rational Choice
Alternative Perspectives
Recommendation and Conclusion
Reference List

Introduction

Rational choice theory is also termed choice theory or still rational action theory. It is an approach by social and political scientists to understand human behavior. This approach was formerly applied by economists; but has recently become popular in other disciplines such as sociology, political science, and anthropology.

The spread of the rational choice theory into political science first appeared in 1962 in William Rikers Theory of political coalitions (Amadae & Amadae 2003). In his theory, Rikers took the theory of economics and the mathematics based game theory and integrated them into political decision-making. His move presented an alternative to focus on concepts such as power and authority practiced for a long time by political scientists.

Rational Choice Theory in Politics

The rational choice theory is drawn from a general approach termed rational actor theory. The general approach emphasizes that an individual who is faced with several goals but has to make a decision among competing alternatives while at the same time possessing extensive information, has a coherent preference ordering and is committed to all the principles he is interested in and would like utility maximization.

Like in many other instances, the analysis of a rational choice usually begins with a question. Accordingly, rational choice takes several steps (Amadae and Amadae, 2003). Initially, an individual identifies the pertinent agents, assumes about their responsibility, and then isolates the restrictions faced by this agent.

He defines the “decision rules” of each of the agents, concludes how the rules of the decision of various agents may be made steady, explores how the equilibrium of the model alternates in response to varying external factors, and finally examines whether his predictions are consistent with actual experience.

In recent decades, rational choice theorists have been able to explore some complex aspects of politics through qualified fundamental assumptions on individual behavior. The theory of comprehensive rationality, which is comparable to neoclassical economic models, hypothesizes that political decision-makers are excessively egotistical utility maximizers who clench stable preferences and intentions.

In order to understand politics at collective level, Peters and Pierre (2006) advice that one should strive to understand the ordered preferences of the individual agents who crowd a given organization or a political sphere and measure the prescribed rules that combine these static preferences. Such an approach will make clear that policy outcomes are a combination of both rules and preferences (Peters & Pierre 2006).

Institutions and Identities

Although significant distinctions exists between rational choice models in public policy, political science, and in economics; all rational choice models have similar characteristics in that decision makers possess constant ranked and ordered preferences for outcomes. For instance, if one is offered three possible routes- 1, 2, and 3, a practical chooser will favor each of these three alternatives differently.

The preferences depicted by this rational chooser will be transitive and will have the necessary information to link his choices to the outcomes. This implies that individuals armed with this information will tend to optimize when making decisions. Therefore, individuals will tend to make strategic choices in order reach the best-preferred result. In this case, individual self-interest is used in the determination of preferences.

Rational choice theorists rush to label utility maximization a question of self-interest without considering other underlying reasons. According to these scholars, the behavior of the individuals reflects their desire to maximize utility of their choice.

What proponents of the rational choice theory I do not understand is that decisions made by individuals under the influence of complete certainty-even if specific strategic choices are believed to result in explicit outcomes-are uncommon in political life. In many instances, theorists of rational choice look at how individuals make choices in risky situations.

This is in cases where an action may lead to several other unforeseen results whose probability of occurring is understood, or with some conditions of uncertainty-in instances where the results are known but the probability of these outcomes occurring is uncertain and can only be estimated- has led to the rise of new acumens.

Instead of making use of a clearly understood value, these theorists have opted to make use of the expected utility theory in estimating how individual voters design calculations that enable them rank alternatives.

In contemporary living, and under conditions of risk, individuals tend to make strategic preferences based on probabilities where they associate the probability that their most preferred outcome will happen, and both against the cost of making a decision. Theorists only consider that individuals calculate the likelihood that election outcomes will vary if they choose a particular action.

They (theorists) do not consider that individual voters also look at the possibility that their selection will lead to different outcomes against the possibility that their choice will not result into the identified outcome.

Individual electorates not only look at the likelihood that an incident will happen, but they must also envisage that the event is probable to happen without them. They also look at the likelihood of their least preferred event occurring in the absence of their participation.

Voting As a Rational Choice

In the rational voting model, voters with social preferences, it is argued that the expected utility of voting is independent of the size of the electorate. Rational theorists perceive that people vote because this gives them positive utility.

They consider this social benefit not just as a psychological feature felt by the individual but as a utility that is related to the likelihood of being pivotal and to the number of people being affected by the said election.

People vote not just as an enjoyable act or a democratic duty, but also as a latent contribution to the welfare of the society. It has been shown that the potential impact of the election outcome is directly proportional to the size of the jurisdiction. In this model, a voter is perceived to have “narcissistic” preferences.

It is only by separating the rationality assumption from the self-centeredness notion that the act of voting can be said to be rational. A rational voter will choose which candidate to vote for on the basis of his own judgment of what is expected of him depending on the outcome of the election and not the direct consequences of voting.

Voters make a decision on whether or how to vote with the hope of making a maximum utility with both social and selfish terms. Observation reveals that even the most selfish voter votes for what he believes to be the common good but not for his direct good. The model does not explain how rational people vote and does not indicate the social vote choices of rational voters.

Vote casting in huge elections is not explicable in terms of egotistical benefits of ballot vote to human beings as the likelihood that a vote will make any change is too low to be “worth it” in effectiveness sense. Although voting provides psychological benefits, it cannot help us predict variations in voter turnout or give guidance on knowing which candidate will be preferred by a voter.

If a voter decides to support Barack Obama for U.S. President in 2012 because he believes that Obama will be better for the country as a whole, other Americans may not see this. In this case, the voter is not updating on the basis of the opinion of others in deciding the quality or social utility of Barack Obama. The voter’s skewed social advantages are comparative to the number of civilians, but are independent from the way others vote.

A voter will be less likely to vote as the probability of his importance shrinks, but as the importance of the election increases, many voters will choose to vote. It is also true that when the cost of voting decreases, more voters will find it rational to vote.

I am inclined to suggest if other factors are held at a constant, the scope of the election will not affect the outcome in any way unless the election is very small. In the actual sense, in very small elections, the individuals are controlled by self-regarding concerns. Again, it is only rational to vote if one cares about the welfare of others.

Apart from participating in voting, a lot of people contribute cash to many political campaigns. While this could be taken as an enjoyment, contributing to national or even local political campaigns can only be warranted as offering success or the opportunity to influence policy directly.

A small cash contribution to national campaigns, just as in voting, is also motivated by the likelihood of a large social benefit rather than by direct voter benefit.

The objectives of individuals are a function of their decision not independent of the framing like rational theorists would like to put it. Individuals in rational voting theory possess severe limitations in their ability to be consistent in their probability calculations.

Rational choice theory emphasize on utility-maximization behavior only producing a concept of human rationality lacking “substantive concept” similar to a scrabble blank tile that can “assume the value of any letter” (Breuning and Ishiyama, 2010).

The theory is also skewed in both its method and theoretical perspectives. Through its deep-seated social scientific pathologies, its research possesses little or no interest in solving political issues. It has a growing reliance on formal modeling and game theories applications.

Alternative Perspectives

Although it is predicted lesser elections to have lower turnouts, it turns out that other conditions combine to keep the turnout at a considerable level. This is an indication that voters are irrational. Trying to assume that voters systematically overestimate their influence on the outcome of the election will not be compatible with the underlying assumption of the rational behavior (Kirshassner, 2008).

Modern rational choice theorists led by WILLIAM H. RICKER have tried to reformulate the voter rational model where they argue that utility is not only derived from a certain electoral outcome, but also from taking part in the process itself. What rational theorists fail to address is the fact that the act of casting a vote is mainly a sociological factor and is not dependent rational voting behavior.

In this model, rational action is seen to produce unintended, unwanted, unexpected and unstable outcome-the opposite of social order as this outcomes lack meaning and structure. There is no any social order that has the capability to endure the unintended consequence of its actors (Lichbach, 2003).

In the rational choice theory, a choice is said to be “rational” meaning that an agent’s choices echo the most preferred viable alternative inferred by the preferences that are often complete and transitive. This definition is very narrow for rationality. The theory limits a “rational” choice on the basis of reason. It defines “reason” as the process of making logical deductions. In this paper, two kinds of question arise.

First, should the conclusion arrived at arise from a given set of premises? Second, are these premises justifiable? A choice can only be rational if it is consistent with utility maximization. An irrational choice is consistent with utility maximization based on irrational preferences. This is taken to imply that choice arise from maximization of utility given preferences (Shapiro, 2007).

Recommendation and Conclusion

Recent years have shown great interest by political researchers to find the meaning and application of rationality. Research has shown that there are limits in the application of rationality in choosing public policy.

Alternative conceptions of rationality are necessary to address among other issues the idea that politics and government can be better understood by the use of the economic leaning model of individual and organizational decision-making and behaviors. Policy formulation, and government decision making are not simple structured processes as one may think.

Politics cannot be reduced to simple self-centered, utility maximizing political actors. Bound rationality assumptions and attention to the impact of public policy should be developed. It is paramount that principles that allow the selection of the most useful decision-making model be developed for other purposes other than economic rationality.

In conclusion, it is evident that the study of rationality in public administration and public policy will be shaped by the criticism, theory development, and empirical research in the future. The heat generated against rationality in public administration arises from the methodology in political science solely because of its theory of human action.

Reference List

Amadae, S. M., and Amada Michelle S. (2003). Rationalizing Capitalist Democracy: The Cold War Origins of Rational Choice Liberalism. Chicago: University of Chicago Press

Breuning, M., and Ishiyama, T. (2010). 21st Century Political Science: A Reference Handbook, Vol1. Los Angeles: SAGE.

Kirchgassner, G. (2008). Homo Oeconomicus: The Model of Individual Behavior Its Applications in Economics and Other Social Sciences. London: Springer.

Lichbach, I. M. (2003). Is Rational Choice Theory All of Social Science? Michigan: University of Michigan Press.

Peters, G. Pierre, J. (2006). Handbook of Public Policy. Los Angeles: SAGE

Shapiro, I. (2007). The Flight from Reality in Human Sciences. New Jersey: Princeton University press.

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