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A Genealogy of Rational Choice: Rationalism, Elitism, and Democracy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 October 2008

J. S. Maloy
J. S. Maloy*
Affiliation:
Oklahoma State University
*
J. S. Maloy, Department of Political Science, Oklahoma State University, 519 Math Sciences Building, Stillwater, Oklahoma, USA74078, maloyj@okstate.edu.
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Abstract

Abstract. Unlike previous methodological debates in political science, the recent rational choice controversy has excluded consideration of normative questions altogether. These can be recovered, in part, through a genealogy of counter-utopian democratic theory which connects modern rational choice theory to the fin-de-siècle sociology of elites via the mediating figure of Schumpeter. The family resemblances include the aspiration toward a pure science of society, the search for a “realistic” theory of democratic politics, and the shading of an empirical proposition about elite domination into a normative celebration. Though democratic theorists have learned much from the counter-utopian tradition generally, both sides of the rational choice controversy have failed to take seriously the elitists' recognition of the ineluctable normative and ideological dimensions of social research.

Résumé. Les débats récents sur le choix rationnel, à contre-pied d'autres disputes méthodologiques en science politique, ont exclu les questions normatives. Ces questions peuvent se rétablir, en partie, par l'intermédiaire d'une généalogie contre-utopiste de la théorie démocratique, qui lie la théorie moderne du choix rationnel au retour de la sociologie élitiste de fin de siècle, avec le personnage de Schumpeter comme médiateur. Les ressemblances familiales portent l'aspiration à une science pure de la société, la recherche d'une théorie «réaliste» de la démocratie et la transition d'une proposition empirique sur la domination des élites vers une célébration normative. Bien que les théoriciens démocratiques aient beaucoup appris de la tradition contre-utopiste, aucune des deux parties du débat sur le choix rationnel n'a pris en compte la reconnaissance élitiste des aspects idéologiques inévitables de la recherche sociale.

Type
Research Article
Information
Canadian Journal of Political Science/Revue canadienne de science politique , Volume 41 , Issue 3 , September 2008 , pp. 749 - 771
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Political Science Association 2008

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