deficient core knowledge, I propose that we turn an osten- sible weakness into a strength. We should identify our mission as bring- ing together insights and theories that would otherwise remain scattered in other disciplines. Because of the lack of interchange among the disci- plines, hypotheses thoroughly discredited in one field may receive wide acceptance in another. Potential research paradigms remain fractured, with pieces here and there but no comprehensive statement to guide re- search. By bringing ideas together in one location, communication can aspire to become a master discipline that synthesizes related theories and concepts and exposes them to the most rigorous, comprehensive state- ment and exploration. Reaching this goal would require a more self-con- scious determination by communication scholars to plumb other fields and feed back their studies to outside researchers. At the same time, such an enterprise would enhance the theoretical rigor of communication scholarship proper. The idea

/pdf/framing-toward-clarification-of-a-fractured-paradigm-8fh5dwfka5.pdf

Framing: Toward Clarification of a Fractured Paradigm

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.

The Evolution of Cooperation

Theory of International Politics

Domestic politics and international relations are often inextricably entangled, but existing theories (particularly “state-centric” theories) do not adequately account for these linkages. When national leaders must win ratification (formal or informal) from their constituents for an international agreement, their negotiating behavior reflects the simultaneous imperatives of both a domestic political game and an international game. Using illustrations from Western economic summitry, the Panama Canal and Versailles Treaty negotiations, IMF stabilization programs, the European Community, and many other diplomatic contexts, this article offers a theory of ratification. It addresses the role of domestic preferences and coalitions, domestic political institutions and practices, the strategies and tactics of negotiators, uncertainty, the domestic reverberation of international pressures, and the interests of the chief negotiator. This theory of “two-level games” may also be applicable to many other political phenomena, such as dependency, legislative committees, and multiparty coalitions.

/pdf/diplomacy-and-domestic-politics-the-logic-of-two-level-games-fpe0vxji8k.pdf

Diplomacy and domestic politics: the logic of two-level games

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.

/pdf/international-norm-dynamics-and-political-change-37ig9r9dlq.pdf

International Norm Dynamics and Political Change

Much recent theorizing about the utility of voting concludes that voting is an irrational act in that it usually costs more to vote than one can expect to get in return.1 This conclusion is doubtless disconcerting ideologically to democrats; but ideological embarrassment is not our interest here. Rather we are concerned with an apparent paradox in the theory. The writers who constructed these analyses were engaged in an endeavor to explain political behavior with a calculus of rational choice; yet they were led by their argument to the conclusion that voting, the fundamental political act, is typically irrational. We find this conflict between purpose and conclusion bizarre but not nearly so bizarre as a non-explanatory theory: The function of theory is to explain behavior and it is certainly no explanation to assign a sizeable part of politics to the mysterious and inexplicable world of the irrational.2 This essay is, therefore, an effort to reinterpret the voting calculus so that it can fit comfortably into a rationalistic theory of political behavior. We describe a calculus of voting from which one infers that it is reasonable for those who vote to do so and also that it is equally reasonable for those who do not vote not to do so. Furthermore we present empirical evidence that citizens actually behave as if they employed this calculus.3

https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/1953324.pdf

A Theory of the Calculus of Voting

The Theory of Political Coalitions.

The Theory of Political Coalitions

Liberalism Against Populism: A Confrontation Between the Theory of Democracy and the Theory of Social Choice

In twelve entertaining stories from history and current events, a noted political scientist and game theorist shows us how some of our heroes we as well as ordinary folk have manipulated their opponents in order to win political advantage. The stories come from many times and places, because manipulation of people by other people is universal: from the Roman Senate through the Constitutional Convention of 1787, to the Congress, state legislatures, and city councils of twentieth-century America. The results of manipulation are not trivial, as we see, for example, in Riker's account of Lincoln's outmaneuvering of Douglas in their debates and in his description of the parliamentary trick that defeated the Equal Rights Amendment only six years ago in the Virginia Senate. The tales can be enjoyed by anyone. For the scholar, they are held together by a concluding chapter in which Riker discusses the feature of politics that all of the manipulators exploited and sketches out the new political theory that explains why manipulation works the way it does. Preface Lincoln at Freeport Chauncey DePew and the Seventeenth Amendment The Flying Club Gouverneur Morris in the Philadelphia Convention Heresthetic in Fiction Camouflaging the Gerrymander Pliny the Younger on Parliamentary Law Trading Votes at the Constitutional Convention How to Win on a Roll Call by Not Voting Warren Magnuson and Nerve Gas Exploiting the Powell Amendment Reed and Cannon Conclusion "A useful and entertaining informal essay on political tactics that will have direct utility in the classroom."-Douglas W. Rae, Yale University William H. Riker is Wilson Professor of Political Science at the University of Rochester and a former president of the American Political Science Association. He is the author of numerous books, including Theory of Political Coalitions, a classic in the field.

William H. Riker

Papers

A Theory of the Calculus of Voting

The Theory of Political Coalitions.

The Theory of Political Coalitions

Liberalism Against Populism: A Confrontation Between the Theory of Democracy and the Theory of Social Choice

The art of political manipulation