Cooperation in organisms, whether bacteria or primates, has been a difficulty for evolutionary theory since Darwin. On the assumption that interactions between pairs of individuals occur on a probabilistic basis, a model is developed based on the concept of an evolutionarily stable strategy in the context of the Prisoner's Dilemma game. Deductions from the model, and the results of a computer tournament show how cooperation based on reciprocity can get started in an asocial world, can thrive while interacting with a wide range of other strategies, and can resist invasion once fully established. Potential applications include specific aspects of territoriality, mating, and disease.

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The Evolution of Cooperation

The psychological principles that govern the perception of decision problems and the evaluation of probabilities and outcomes produce predictable shifts of preference when the same problem is framed in different ways. Reversals of preference are demonstrated in choices regarding monetary outcomes, both hypothetical and real, and in questions pertaining to the loss of human lives. The effects of frames on preferences are compared to the effects of perspectives on perceptual appearance. The dependence of preferences on the formulation of decision problems is a significant concern for the theory of rational choice.

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The Framing of Decisions and the Psychology of Choice

While heated arguments between practitioners of qualitative and quantitative research have begun to test the very integrity of the social sciences, Gary King, Robert Keohane, and Sidney Verba have produced a farsighted and timely book that promises to sharpen and strengthen a wide range of research performed in this field. These leading scholars, each representing diverse academic traditions, have developed a unified approach to valid descriptive and causal inference in qualitative research, where numerical measurement is either impossible or undesirable. Their book demonstrates that the same logic of inference underlies both good quantitative and good qualitative research designs, and their approach applies equally to each. Providing precepts intended to stimulate and discipline thought, the authors explore issues related to framing research questions, measuring the accuracy of data and uncertainty of empirical inferences, discovering causal effects, and generally improving qualitative research. Among the specific topics they address are interpretation and inference, comparative case studies, constructing causal theories, dependent and explanatory variables, the limits of random selection, selection bias, and errors in measurement. Mathematical notation is occasionally used to clarify concepts, but no prior knowledge of mathematics or statistics is assumed. The unified logic of inference that this book explicates will be enormously useful to qualitative researchers of all traditions and substantive fields.

Designing Social Inquiry: Scientific Inference in Qualitative Research

The growing technical uncertainties and complexities of problems of global concern have made international policy coordination not only increasingly necessary but also increasingly difficult. If decision makers are unfamiliar with the technical aspects of a specific problem, how do they define state interests and develop viable solutions? What factors shape their behavior? Under conditions of uncertainty, what are the origins of international institutions? And how can we best study the processes through which international policy coordination and order emerge? While a variety of analytic approaches have been used to address the problems of international cooperation, the approaches have yielded only fragmentary insights. At its core, the study of policy coordination among states involves arguments about determinism versus free will and about the ways in which the international system is maintained and transformed. Among the overlapping topics of debate are whether national behavior is determined or broadly conditioned by system-level factors, unit-level factors, or some complex interplay between the two; whether state policymakers can identify national interests and behave independently of pressures from the social groups they nominally represent; and whether states respond consistently to opportunities to create, defend, or expand their own wealth and power, to enhance collective material benefits, or to promote nonmaterial values.' A related question of

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Introduction: epistemic communities and international policy coordination

Norms have never been absent from the study of international politics, but the sweeping “ideational turn” in the 1980s and 1990s brought them back as a central theoretical concern in the field. Much theorizing about norms has focused on how they create social structure, standards of appropriateness, and stability in international politics. Recent empirical research on norms, in contrast, has examined their role in creating political change, but change processes have been less well-theorized. We induce from this research a variety of theoretical arguments and testable hypotheses about the role of norms in political change. We argue that norms evolve in a three-stage “life cycle” of emergence, “norm cascades,” and internalization, and that each stage is governed by different motives, mechanisms, and behavioral logics. We also highlight the rational and strategic nature of many social construction processes and argue that theoretical progress will only be made by placing attention on the connections between norms and rationality rather than by opposing the two.

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International Norm Dynamics and Political Change

Elster contrasts two distinct and frequently opposing social science traditions. One was fostered by Adam Smith and is carried forward today by neoclassical economists and rational-choice theorists in political science. It views humans as “economic men,” that is, as motivated by egoistic material concerns. The other tradition has its roots in the work of the French sociologist Emile Durkheim, provides the basis for much contemporary sociology and has adherents among political scientists, particularly political culture theorists such as Eckstein (1988). It views humans as social creatures, having duty-based and other obligations to their fellows. “Sociological man’s” activity is thus constrained by shared social (cultural) norms. Elster is skeptical that these cultural norms generally realize individual self-interest as this is understood in the rational-choice tradition. Indeed, elsewhere he distinguishes “economic man” rationality and “nonra-tional” cultural norms even more sharply than he does in this chapter (Elster 1989b). Overall, Elster holds that, for the most part, cultural norms neither arise from rationality, as neoclassical economists understand it, nor do they serve it.

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Social Norms and Economic Theory

Preface and acknowledgements Introduction: the two problems of social order 1. Collective action 2. Bargaining 3. Social norms 4. Bargaining and collective action 5. Collective action and social norms 6. Bargaining and social norms Conclusion: the cement of society References Index.

The Cement of Society: A Survey of Social Order

Preface and acknowledgements 1. Rationality 2. States that are essentially by-products 3. Sour grapes 4. Belief, bias and ideology References Index.

Sour Grapes: Studies in the Subversion of Rationality

This 1989 book is intended as an introductory survey of the philosophy of the social sciences. It is essentially a work of exposition which offers a toolbox of mechanisms - nuts and bolts, cogs and wheels - that can be used to explain complex social phenomena. Within a brief compass, Jon Elster covers a vast range of topics. His point of departure is the conflict we all face between our desires and our opportunities. How can rational choice theory help us understand our motivation and behaviour? More significantly, what happens when the theory breaks down but we still cleave to a belief in the power of the rational? Elster describes the fascinating range of forms of irrationality - wishful thinking, the phenomenon of sour grapes, discounting the future in noncooperative behaviour. This is a remarkably lucid and comprehensive introduction to the social sciences for students of political science, philosophy, sociology and economics.

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Nuts and bolts for the social sciences

Economists and psychologists who study emotions have worked in near-total isolation from each other. The article discusses some areas in which economists might take account of emotions. After a survey of the main features of emotions as analyzed by psychologists and physiologists, the article discusses three aspects of the relation between emotion and choice. (1) Given that emotions may be intrinsically valuable or instrumentally useful, can one choose to have them? (2) Can emotions supplement rationality in cases where it yields indeterminate prescriptions for choice? (3) When an emotion and self-interest suggest different courses of action, how do they interact to produce a final decision?

Jon Elster

Papers

Social Norms and Economic Theory

The Cement of Society: A Survey of Social Order

Sour Grapes: Studies in the Subversion of Rationality

Nuts and bolts for the social sciences

Emotions and Economic Theory