Robert Grafstein
Dados Biográficos
| ID | 1069162 |
|---|---|
| NOME | Robert Grafstein |
| PRENOMES | Robert |
| SOBRENOME | Grafstein |
| ASSINATURA | GRAFSTEIN R |
| AFILIAÇÕES | University of Georgia |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-7816-7092 |
| VERIFICADO | Sim |
| TOTAL DE OBRAS | 33 |
| TOTAL DE CITAÇÕES | 117 |
| TOTAL COMO AUTOR | 33 |
| TOTAL COMO EDITOR | 0 |
| PRIMEIRO ANO DE PUBLICAÇÃO | 1981 |
| ANO MAIS RECENTE DE PUBLICAÇÃO | 2018 |
| ÍNDICE H | 5 |
The problem of polarization
Public pensions and the intergenerational politics of aging societies
Nearly all modern public pension programs involve a substantial transfer of wealth from workers to retirees. If parents love their children, why are these intergenerational transfers politically sustainable? This paper develops a cross-national overlapping generations model to explore the impact of income mobility on the way workers and retirees calculate the long-term value of these programs to their children. Mobility affects their evaluations …
Eugene F. Miller
It is with great sadness that we report the passing of our longtime friend and colleague, Dr. Eugene F. Miller, professor emeritus of political science at the University of Georgia, who taught in the department of political science with great distinction from 1967 until his retirement in 2003. He died on May 30, 2010, following a two-year battle with multiple myeloma
Antisocial Security: The Puzzle of Beggar‐Thy‐Children Policies
The U.S. Social Security program has irrevocably transferred substantial wealth from workers to their ostensibly altruistic parents. After some alternative explanations for this paradox are addressed, a formal model is developed to show that a majority of rational voters who care about their descendants can support the preservation of current benefits for themselves but accept the prospect of Social Security's future retrenchment. Incorporating e…
The Puzzle of Weak Pocketbook Voting
This article investigates why predominantly self-interested voters exhibit weak pocketbook voting. Focusing on the USA, it estimates partisan government’s impact on household income and, based on the Permanent Income Hypothesis, models the conversion of that income into consumption, the source of voters’ utility in the model. The analysis implies that pocketbook voting is weak because anticipated policy is already incorporated in household consum…
Surprise party: Estimating the consequences of unexpected presidential election results
The Impact of Employment Status on Voting Behavior
This paper examines the impact of employment status on voting by formally modeling the effect of partisan government on workers' economic interests. These interests are determined by model workers' labor supply decisions, which are conditioned on their expected wage, unemployment benefits, and the probability of receiving a job offer or being laid off. Both probabilities are influenced by the party in power. The solution to the model implies that…
StrategicVoting in Presidential Primaries: Problems of Explanation and Interpretation
This note uncovers a serious flaw in Abramson et al.’s (1992) influential application of expected utility theory to the study of strategic voting in U.S. presidential primaries. Due to this flaw, it is not clear what theory their positive empirical results actually support. Rather than dismissing their findings as anomalous or simply as disconfirming expected utility theory, this note uses conditional expected utility theory, a basic revision of …
Strategic Voting in Presidential Primaries: Problems of Explanation and Interpretation
A Logic of Expressive Choice . Alexander A. Schuessler
What Rational Political Actors Can Expect
This article analyzes the distinction between two definitions of rationality, standard expected utility maximization and an alternative that says rational individuals maximize their expected utility given their acts. The latter version can explain important political phenomena that challenge the standard approach. Documenting the empirical advantages of the second definition for political science, the article also argues that conditional expected…
Confronting Political—Economic Theories of Voting with Evidence
This paper illustrates one strategy for testing a theory of economic influences on voting. We use a competitive equilibrium model of the economy to determine the impact of an individual's economic position on his or her economic interests and, ultimately, political interests. We then test whether this impact is observed in voting behavior, addressing the resulting specification and estimation problems in the context of U.S. presidential election …
David Austen-Smith and Jeffrey S. Banks, Positive Political Theory I: Collective Preference
Employment, Party Economic Performance, and the Formation of Partisan Preferences
In order to explore the formation of partisan preferences, this paper develops a political-economic model of the US providing micro-foundations for both the genesis and consequences of unemployment. It predicts the standard findings (1) that Democratic administrations are associated with higher economic growth than are Republican administrations; and (2) that the electorate's partisan preference is influenced by the relative likelihood of unemplo…
"Thick Rationality and the Missing "Brute Fact: The Limits of Rationalist Incorporations of Norms and Ideas: Comment
For the foreseeable future, rational choice theory will be a fundamental tool for interpreting human behavior because rationality is the conceptual glue linking preferences and beliefs-the core constituents of any interpretation-to meaningful actions. Interpretivism, therefore, is no alternative or even an independent supplement to rational choice theory. The theory's specific problems incorporating norms as other than brute facts arguably reflec…
Rationality as Conditional Expected Utility Maximization
Rationality is usually defined in terms of expected utility maximization. This paper argues for defining it in terms of conditional expected utility maximization by showing this conception's superior explanatory power in the case of electoral participation and the honoring of political commitments. The paper also shows that the expected utility definition relies on a somewhat outdated metaphysics of decision-making is more in keeping with standar…
Group Identity, Rationality and Electoral Mobilization
Group differences are often associated with increased political mobilization. Yet group identification is surprisingly flexible and opportunistic. This paper reconciles these two findings by modeling group identification in terms of behavioral interdependencies between a rational agent and those with whom the agent identifies. Given this kind of identification, the agent's own decisions provide useful information concerning the behavior of fellow…
Sociology
Rational Choice Inside and Out Beyond Self-Interest. Jane J. Mansbridge The Limits of Rationality. Karen Schweers Cook , Margaret Levi Perspectives on Positive Political Economy. James E. Alt , Kennet…
An Evidential Decision Theory of Turnout
According to the standard analysis, which is grounded in causal decision theory, the rational decision to participate in mass elections depends on the probability of affecting the outcome. The resulting prediction of abstention is clearly mistaken. According to the alternative, evidential decision theory, voters calculate the conditional expected utility of participating rather than its causal consequences. A version of this theory is introduced …
Isolation and Paradox. Frank Louis Rusciano
Missing the Archimedean Point: Liberalism's Institutional Presuppositions
Though liberalism has been widely criticized for its attempt to frame a detached judgment of society based on an asocial conception of individuals, insufficient attention has been paid to the particular social and political relationships this search for an Archimedean point presupposes. Using collective choice theory, I show that liberalism has adopted two distinct kinds of Archimedean points reflecting different and unjustified presuppositions a…
Rationalism or Revelation
Are there appropriate limits to the application of rational choice in political decision making? Does rationalism in politics lead to absolutism? Is there a “pressing threat” to liberal democracy “posed by the irreverent conviction of the hegemony of reason”? In the June 1987 issue of this Review , Darrell Dobbs drew lesson from Homer's epic poem, the Odyssey , to argue the limits of rationalism in politics. In this Controversy, Robert Crafstein …
The Problem of Institutional Constraint
Political institutions are both human products and constraints on those participating within them. Focusing on rational choice theory and Marxist political theory, this paper shows that the problem of reconciling these two characteristics pervades modern political research. The upshot is a fundamental ambiguity in political science's specification of what institutions are. The paper proposes a reconciliation of the two characteristics based on a …
A Realist Foundation for Essentially Contested Political Concepts
BELIEF continues to pervade academic life, at least officially, that reasoned arguments concerning the great political issues can persuade opponents. Unofficially, however, there seems to be a growing sentiment since the Enlightenment that without shared political and social values, specific arguments about democracy, justice, or liberty are bound to end, at best, in a mutual shrugging of shoulders. Each party's specific insights, according to th…
The Failure of Weber's Conception of Legitimacy: Its Causes and Implications
The Impact of Employment Status on Voting Behavior
This paper examines the impact of employment status on voting by formally modeling the effect of partisan government on workers' economic interests. These interests are determined by model workers' labor supply decisions, which are conditioned on their expected wage, unemployment benefits, and the probability of receiving a job offer or being laid off. Both probabilities are influenced by the party in power. The solution to the model implies that…
An Evidential Decision Theory of Turnout
According to the standard analysis, which is grounded in causal decision theory, the rational decision to participate in mass elections depends on the probability of affecting the outcome. The resulting prediction of abstention is clearly mistaken. According to the alternative, evidential decision theory, voters calculate the conditional expected utility of participating rather than its causal consequences. A version of this theory is introduced …
The Problem of Institutional Constraint
Political institutions are both human products and constraints on those participating within them. Focusing on rational choice theory and Marxist political theory, this paper shows that the problem of reconciling these two characteristics pervades modern political research. The upshot is a fundamental ambiguity in political science's specification of what institutions are. The paper proposes a reconciliation of the two characteristics based on a …
The Puzzle of Weak Pocketbook Voting
This article investigates why predominantly self-interested voters exhibit weak pocketbook voting. Focusing on the USA, it estimates partisan government’s impact on household income and, based on the Permanent Income Hypothesis, models the conversion of that income into consumption, the source of voters’ utility in the model. The analysis implies that pocketbook voting is weak because anticipated policy is already incorporated in household consum…
Employment, Party Economic Performance, and the Formation of Partisan Preferences
In order to explore the formation of partisan preferences, this paper develops a political-economic model of the US providing micro-foundations for both the genesis and consequences of unemployment. It predicts the standard findings (1) that Democratic administrations are associated with higher economic growth than are Republican administrations; and (2) that the electorate's partisan preference is influenced by the relative likelihood of unemplo…
Group Identity, Rationality and Electoral Mobilization
Group differences are often associated with increased political mobilization. Yet group identification is surprisingly flexible and opportunistic. This paper reconciles these two findings by modeling group identification in terms of behavioral interdependencies between a rational agent and those with whom the agent identifies. Given this kind of identification, the agent's own decisions provide useful information concerning the behavior of fellow…
A Realist Foundation for Essentially Contested Political Concepts
BELIEF continues to pervade academic life, at least officially, that reasoned arguments concerning the great political issues can persuade opponents. Unofficially, however, there seems to be a growing sentiment since the Enlightenment that without shared political and social values, specific arguments about democracy, justice, or liberty are bound to end, at best, in a mutual shrugging of shoulders. Each party's specific insights, according to th…
The Legitimacy of Political Institutions
This paper criticizes the standard view that the legitimacy of a political institution rests on the private convictions of its clients. It shows that these problems derive from a more basic difficulty with the conception of political order upon which the standard idea of legitimacy rests. A revised conception of legitimacy is constructed in which legitimacy becomes a direct property of institutions rather than of individuals. In the process, it i…
"Thick Rationality and the Missing "Brute Fact: The Limits of Rationalist Incorporations of Norms and Ideas: Comment
For the foreseeable future, rational choice theory will be a fundamental tool for interpreting human behavior because rationality is the conceptual glue linking preferences and beliefs-the core constituents of any interpretation-to meaningful actions. Interpretivism, therefore, is no alternative or even an independent supplement to rational choice theory. The theory's specific problems incorporating norms as other than brute facts arguably reflec…
What Rational Political Actors Can Expect
This article analyzes the distinction between two definitions of rationality, standard expected utility maximization and an alternative that says rational individuals maximize their expected utility given their acts. The latter version can explain important political phenomena that challenge the standard approach. Documenting the empirical advantages of the second definition for political science, the article also argues that conditional expected…
Missing the Archimedean Point: Liberalism's Institutional Presuppositions
Though liberalism has been widely criticized for its attempt to frame a detached judgment of society based on an asocial conception of individuals, insufficient attention has been paid to the particular social and political relationships this search for an Archimedean point presupposes. Using collective choice theory, I show that liberalism has adopted two distinct kinds of Archimedean points reflecting different and unjustified presuppositions a…
Taking Dworkin to Hart: A Positivist Conception of Institutional Rules
HE STUDENT OF POLITICAL INSTITUTIONS must eventually come to grips with the phenomenon of rules, for rules help to establish the behavioral regularities that intially bring institutions to our attention. But the political scientist discovers that explicit rules govern behavior only as a rule. A vast body of behavior remains out of their reach and must remain so, one gathers, if an institution is to operate without excessive rigidity or internal f…
The problem of polarization
Surprise party: Estimating the consequences of unexpected presidential election results
The Significance of Modern State of Nature Theory
State of nature theory has been widely criticized as implausible. This article argues that, by concentrating on its lack of realism, critics miss the humanizing significance of the theory. State of nature theory, inaccuracies and all, challenges the common and deeply entrenched view that there are political facts, or political entities such as institutions, states, and systems, that in some important sense transcend the human beings acting politi…
The Institutional Resolution of the Fact-Value Dilemma
The Institutional Resolution of the Fact-Value Dilemma
The Failure of Weber's Conception of Legitimacy: Its Causes and Implications
The Legitimacy of Political Institutions
This paper criticizes the standard view that the legitimacy of a political institution rests on the private convictions of its clients. It shows that these problems derive from a more basic difficulty with the conception of political order upon which the standard idea of legitimacy rests. A revised conception of legitimacy is constructed in which legitimacy becomes a direct property of institutions rather than of individuals. In the process, it i…
Taking Dworkin to Hart: A Positivist Conception of Institutional Rules
HE STUDENT OF POLITICAL INSTITUTIONS must eventually come to grips with the phenomenon of rules, for rules help to establish the behavioral regularities that intially bring institutions to our attention. But the political scientist discovers that explicit rules govern behavior only as a rule. A vast body of behavior remains out of their reach and must remain so, one gathers, if an institution is to operate without excessive rigidity or internal f…
Ontology and the Theory of Justice
To what should theories of justice ascribe rights, goodness, justness, virtue, or utility? Answers, depending on the theory and on what is being ascribed, have included persons, selves, human bodies, institutions, and supra-individual aggregates such as nations. Some of these things, such as social aggregates, have been invoked to save particular philosophical positions against strong objections. Others, such as persons, have been used in raising…
Political Freedom and Political Action
STATEMENTS about freedom, according to MacCallum (1970: 109), can be characterized by the following schema: x is (is not) free from y to do (not do, become, not become) z, where x stands for an actor, y for a constraint, and z for an action or state of being. Thus a citizen who is free to walk the streets without being mugged enjoys what Berlin (1969) calls negative liberty. The element of this schema that has generated the greatest debate among …
Political Freedom and Political Action
The Significance of Modern State of Nature Theory
State of nature theory has been widely criticized as implausible. This article argues that, by concentrating on its lack of realism, critics miss the humanizing significance of the theory. State of nature theory, inaccuracies and all, challenges the common and deeply entrenched view that there are political facts, or political entities such as institutions, states, and systems, that in some important sense transcend the human beings acting politi…
Rationalism or Revelation
Are there appropriate limits to the application of rational choice in political decision making? Does rationalism in politics lead to absolutism? Is there a “pressing threat” to liberal democracy “posed by the irreverent conviction of the hegemony of reason”? In the June 1987 issue of this Review , Darrell Dobbs drew lesson from Homer's epic poem, the Odyssey , to argue the limits of rationalism in politics. In this Controversy, Robert Crafstein …
The Problem of Institutional Constraint
Political institutions are both human products and constraints on those participating within them. Focusing on rational choice theory and Marxist political theory, this paper shows that the problem of reconciling these two characteristics pervades modern political research. The upshot is a fundamental ambiguity in political science's specification of what institutions are. The paper proposes a reconciliation of the two characteristics based on a …
A Realist Foundation for Essentially Contested Political Concepts
BELIEF continues to pervade academic life, at least officially, that reasoned arguments concerning the great political issues can persuade opponents. Unofficially, however, there seems to be a growing sentiment since the Enlightenment that without shared political and social values, specific arguments about democracy, justice, or liberty are bound to end, at best, in a mutual shrugging of shoulders. Each party's specific insights, according to th…
Isolation and Paradox. Frank Louis Rusciano
Missing the Archimedean Point: Liberalism's Institutional Presuppositions
Though liberalism has been widely criticized for its attempt to frame a detached judgment of society based on an asocial conception of individuals, insufficient attention has been paid to the particular social and political relationships this search for an Archimedean point presupposes. Using collective choice theory, I show that liberalism has adopted two distinct kinds of Archimedean points reflecting different and unjustified presuppositions a…
An Evidential Decision Theory of Turnout
According to the standard analysis, which is grounded in causal decision theory, the rational decision to participate in mass elections depends on the probability of affecting the outcome. The resulting prediction of abstention is clearly mistaken. According to the alternative, evidential decision theory, voters calculate the conditional expected utility of participating rather than its causal consequences. A version of this theory is introduced …
Rational Choice Inside and Out Beyond Self-Interest. Jane J. Mansbridge The Limits of Rationality. Karen Schweers Cook , Margaret Levi Perspectives on Positive Political Economy. James E. Alt , Kennet…
Sociology
Rationality as Conditional Expected Utility Maximization
Rationality is usually defined in terms of expected utility maximization. This paper argues for defining it in terms of conditional expected utility maximization by showing this conception's superior explanatory power in the case of electoral participation and the honoring of political commitments. The paper also shows that the expected utility definition relies on a somewhat outdated metaphysics of decision-making is more in keeping with standar…
Group Identity, Rationality and Electoral Mobilization
Group differences are often associated with increased political mobilization. Yet group identification is surprisingly flexible and opportunistic. This paper reconciles these two findings by modeling group identification in terms of behavioral interdependencies between a rational agent and those with whom the agent identifies. Given this kind of identification, the agent's own decisions provide useful information concerning the behavior of fellow…
"Thick Rationality and the Missing "Brute Fact: The Limits of Rationalist Incorporations of Norms and Ideas: Comment
For the foreseeable future, rational choice theory will be a fundamental tool for interpreting human behavior because rationality is the conceptual glue linking preferences and beliefs-the core constituents of any interpretation-to meaningful actions. Interpretivism, therefore, is no alternative or even an independent supplement to rational choice theory. The theory's specific problems incorporating norms as other than brute facts arguably reflec…
David Austen-Smith and Jeffrey S. Banks, Positive Political Theory I: Collective Preference
Employment, Party Economic Performance, and the Formation of Partisan Preferences
In order to explore the formation of partisan preferences, this paper develops a political-economic model of the US providing micro-foundations for both the genesis and consequences of unemployment. It predicts the standard findings (1) that Democratic administrations are associated with higher economic growth than are Republican administrations; and (2) that the electorate's partisan preference is influenced by the relative likelihood of unemplo…
Confronting Political—Economic Theories of Voting with Evidence
This paper illustrates one strategy for testing a theory of economic influences on voting. We use a competitive equilibrium model of the economy to determine the impact of an individual's economic position on his or her economic interests and, ultimately, political interests. We then test whether this impact is observed in voting behavior, addressing the resulting specification and estimation problems in the context of U.S. presidential election …
A Logic of Expressive Choice . Alexander A. Schuessler
What Rational Political Actors Can Expect
This article analyzes the distinction between two definitions of rationality, standard expected utility maximization and an alternative that says rational individuals maximize their expected utility given their acts. The latter version can explain important political phenomena that challenge the standard approach. Documenting the empirical advantages of the second definition for political science, the article also argues that conditional expected…
StrategicVoting in Presidential Primaries: Problems of Explanation and Interpretation
This note uncovers a serious flaw in Abramson et al.’s (1992) influential application of expected utility theory to the study of strategic voting in U.S. presidential primaries. Due to this flaw, it is not clear what theory their positive empirical results actually support. Rather than dismissing their findings as anomalous or simply as disconfirming expected utility theory, this note uses conditional expected utility theory, a basic revision of …
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