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Probing the Accuracy of Rational Decision Making Models: Alternative Accounts

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PPGPortal > Home > Subjects > Democratic Institutions and Policy Process > TEACHING TOPICS IN DEMOCRATIC INSTITUTIONS AND POLICY PROCESS > Probing the Accuracy of Rational Decision Making Models: Alternative Accounts

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TEACHING TOPICS IN DEMOCRATIC INSTITUTINS AND POLICY PROCESS
Actors, Interests and Lobbying
Administration and Governance
Administrative Law and Constitutional Checks on the Executive
All-Powerful Leaders?: The Concentration of Power in Modern Executives
Bureaucracy and the Formulation of Public Policy
Canadian Intergovernmental Structures and Operating Processes
Conceptual and Theoretical Foundations of Third Sector Governance and Management
Courts, Judicial Review, Rights and Democracy
Democracy
Emergence of the Nation State
Executive Authority, Cabinet and Leadership
Executive Leadership in Government
Executive-Legislative Relations
Federalism
Federal-Provincial Fiscal Relations
Federal-Provincial-Municipal Relations
Game Theory and Rational Institutionalism
Indigenous Rights and Institutions
Institutional Architecture: Federalism
Institutional Designs and Paths
Machinery of Government
Media, Framing and Agenda Setting
New Public Management
Parliamentary, Presidential and Decentralized Unitary Systems
Political and Administrative Responsibilities
Political and Administrative Responsibilities
Political Parties and Elections
Probing the Accuracy of Rational Decision Making Models: Alternative Accounts
Public and Para-Public Institutions
Public Institutions, Organizing Principles and Democratic Control
Public Opinion, Ideas and Policy Frames
Representation and Accountability
Representation and Responsiveness
Representation, Accountability and Policy
The Architecture of the Canadian State
The Bureaucracy and Bureaucratic Behaviour
The Changing Role of the State
The Democratic Deficit: Ethics, Responsiveness and Performance
The International Context of Domestic Institutions
The Policy Cycle
The Political Context of Policy Making
Weber: Rationalization and Bureaucracy
Westminster Parliamentary Systems
Who are the Players in the Policy Process?

 

A Teaching Topic in Democratic Institutions and Policy Process

Probing the Accuracy of Rational Decision Making Models: Alternative Accounts

This topic deals with the major critiques of the rational choice decision making model, exploring different reasons why individuals and institutions may not always be depended upon to act rationally in their own self-interest. Students consider the ways in which imperfect information, cognitive biases and other factors may interfere with rational decision making. Studying major recent developments in the field of behavioural economics is an important component of this topic.

Recommended Reading (University of Toronto PPG-1001)

Wilson, Rick. 2011. “The Contribution of Behavioral Economics to Political Science.” Annual Reviewof Political Science 14: 201-223.

March, James G. and Johan P. Olsen. 1996. “Institutional Perspectives on Political Institutions.” Governance 9, 3: 247-264.

Forester, John. “Bounded Rationality and the Politics of Muddling Through.” Public Administration Review 44, 1 (January 1984), 23-31.

Henrich, John, et al. 2001. “In Search of Homo Economicus: Behavioral Experiments in 15 Small-Scale Societies.” The American Economic Review 91, 2: 73-78.

Jones, Bryan D. “Bounded Rationality.” Annual Review of Political Science 2 (1999), 297-321.

Lindblom, Charles. 1959. “The Science of Muddling Through.” Public Administration Review 19, 2:79-88.

Renwick Monroe, Kristen and Kristen Hill Maher. 1995. “Psychology and Rational Actor Theory.” Political Psychology 16, 1: 1-21.

Tversky, Amos and Daniel Kahneman. 1981. “The Framing of Decisions and the Psychology of Choice.” Science 211, 4481 : 453-458.

Source: PPG-1001 Syllabus, 2013.

Page created by: Ben Eisen, last updated 23 February 2013.

 

 

 

 

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