Democracy as a Latent Variable

We apply formal, statistical measurement models to the Polity indicators, used widely in studies of international relations to measure democracy. In so doing, we make explicit the hitherto implicit assumptions underlying scales built using the Polity indicators. Modeling democracy as a latent variable allows us to assess the "noise" (measurement error) in the resulting measure. We show that this measurement error is considerable and has substantive consequences when using a measure of democracy as an independent variable in cross-national statistical analyses. Our analysis suggests that skepticism as to the precision of the Polity democracy scale is well founded and that many researchers have been overly sanguine about the properties of the Polity democracy scale in applied statistical work.     

合理性是科学理论的本相

形形色色的后现代流派的一个共同特征是极力反对科学的合理性,可是合理性无论如何是科学理论的本相——这主要表现在它的抽象性、符号性、非自然性或非显然性、因果性、一致性或连贯性、系统性或条理性等方面。     

Learning about Voter Rationality

An important empirical literature evaluates whether voters are rational by examining how electoral outcomes respond to events outside the control of politicians, such as natural disasters or economic shocks. The argument is that rational voters should not base electoral decisions on such events, so evidence that these events affect electoral outcomes is evidence of voter irrationality. We show that such events can affect electoral outcomes, even if voters are rational and have instrumental preferences. The reason is that these events change voters' opportunities to learn new information about incumbents. Thus, identifying voter (ir)rationality requires more than just identifying the impact of exogenous shocks on electoral fortunes. Our analysis highlights systematic ways in which electoral fortunes are expected to change in response to events outside incumbents' control. Such results can inform empirical work attempting to identify voter (ir)rationality.     

Voting, Rationality and Reputation

Why do people vote? This paper presents a solution to the voting paradox in rational choice theory, based on the interaction between two concepts: externalities (James Coleman) and reputation (Einar Overbye). Elaborating on the idea that voting is an investment in one's reputation, I will argue that there are two concepts of reputation: reputation-of-power and reputation-of-trust. The solution to the voting paradox can be found in the reputation-game between social actors holding these two different forms of reputation. During an electoral campaign, powerful opinion leaders can employ their reputation-of-power (power to impose sanctions) in order to get mere voters to vote in a certain way. The aim of the powerful opinion leaders is not to influence the outcome of the election but simply to acquire or maintain their reputation, while mere voters have an interest to vote as told in order to appear trustworthy (reputation-of-trust) to powerful opinion leaders. The act of voting is an unintended consequence of this power game.     

Complexity and Rationality in Public Life

Increasing complexity in the contemporary world calls into question prevailing notions of rationality in public policy and political life. Even in their most refined forms, instrumental-analytic strategies of decision are inherently limited when confronted with complexity. Communicative rationality, rooted in the intersubjective understanding of competent actors, could cope more effectively with complex social problems. By implication, political institutions grounded in instrumental rationality may be less effective than those providing for reasoned discourse among concerned actors.     

Treating Voters as an Afterthought? The Legacies of a Decade of Electoral Modernisation in the United Kingdom

Over the past decade, the UK's New Labour government has been at the forefront of efforts internationally to modernise electoral procedures, promising to deliver 'an e-enabled, multi-channel general election by 2006'. This paper considers the origins and the impacts of reforms to UK electoral procedures with a particular focus on the adoption of postal voting on demand and pilots of electronic voting and counting since 2000. The paper concludes that the principal legacy of the modernisation agenda to date is likely to have been a negative impact on public confidence in the electoral process.     

Rationality between the maximizers and the satisficers

It is argued that by explicating rationality in terms of benefits balancing or outweighing costs instead of in terms of maximizing or satisficing something, a more adequate view of rationality is obtained.I would like to thank Myles Brand, Hugh Lehman, Michael Martin, Ian Mitroff, Michael Ruse and Gordon Welty for their thoughtful comments and encouragement.     

The Rationality Crisis in US Higher Education

Over the course of the last century, many of the stresses and contradictions of advanced capitalism have been displaced onto colleges and universities, which are now directly attached to the state—whether legally, politically, or financially—as an important component of the ideological and economic state apparatuses. As a component of the ideological and economic state apparatuses, the university is implicated in the state's ongoing fiscal crisis as both a cause of the crisis and a solution to the crisis. The author argues that the possibilities for crisis management within the existing corporate model of higher education have been exhausted in a rationality crisis that threatens to implode the administrative apparatus in higher education. The author calls for a radical reconstruction of power relationships within the university and in its relationships to capital and the state.     

浅谈当前高校学生活动安排的合理性

学生活动是青年大学生成长成才的重要平台,对青年大学生的全面发展具有不可或缺的作用。就当前高校在学生活动安排方面普遍存的问题提出一些合理化建议如下:做好年度规划,保证学生活动安排分布的合理性;高校学生活动安排应该以学生为中心;缩减活动数量,提高活动和质量创意。     

论行为效果与道德评价合理性

行为效果是道德评价是否合理的一个重要依据.在实践中,行为效果往往具有多样性和复杂性,承担道德责任的行为效果应该追溯到最初结果;同时,针对合规行为产生的坏效果问题,我们必须要结合整个行为过程以及综合各方面的因素来作出合理的道德评价.     

“理性经济人”假设的合理性及其限度

"理性经济人"假设是西方经济学进行经济研究的前提假设,这一理论具有一定的合理性,其为经济学研究奠定了理论假设的前提。马克思主义认为:"人的本质不是单个人所固有的抽象物,在其现实性上,它是一切社会关系的总和。"[1]人的本性也是发展变化的,不能单从经济方面去界定人的本性,只有把人看做不断发展的、全面的人才是对人的正确认识,从这一方面来说"理性经济人"假设又有一定的限度。因此,应该对"理性经济人"假设作辩证的理解。     

Identity as Dependent Variable: How Americans Shift Their Identities to Align with Their Politics

Political science generally treats identities such as ethnicity, religion, and sexuality as “unmoved movers” in the chain of causality. I hypothesize that the growing salience of partisanship and ideology as social identities in the United States, combined with the increasing demographic distinctiveness of the nation's two political coalitions, is leading some Americans to engage in a self-categorization and depersonalization process in which they shift their identities toward the demographic prototypes of their political groups. Analyses of a representative panel data set that tracks identities and political affiliations over a 4-year span confirm that small but significant shares of Americans engage in identity switching regarding ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, and class that is predicted by partisanship and ideology in their pasts, bringing their identities into alignment with their politics. These findings enrich and complicate our understanding of the relationship between identity and politics and suggest caution in treating identities as unchanging phenomena.     

公共政策的合法性与合理性分析

公共政策是人类社会发展到一定阶段的产物,属于调控和管理社会的规范体系的一部分。作为有约束力的行为规范,它应当与现行法律相一致;作为行动方案,它应当具有可行性和合理性。如果合法性或合理性欠缺,公共政策在实施过程中就有可能因遭受抵制而无法发挥其作用。