Rational Choice Theory and Irrational Decisions - Essay Example

The present paper is devoted to the discussion of the rational choice theories as applied to the political science and international relations in particular. The aim of the work is to consider the assumption, that political science and international relations display a wide range of irrational decisions, which cannot be explained by the rational choice theory. The main conclusion of the work is that despite the fact that rational choice theories are widely used at present for the explanation of various international processes, their application is in many terms limited as soon as the decision appears to be irrational. Rational choice theories are inapplicable to the irrational decision-making Rational choice theory The last decades have been characterized by the widely spread opinion, that any political behavior, especially in the area of international relations can be explained on the basis of the rational choice. On the contrary, certain political scientists have also argued as for the relevance and universality of the present theory in terms of international political decisions. The core of the rational choice approach is that 'people always try to maximize their interests', (Ferejohn & Satz, 1996); in regional politics this maximization may be connected with the desire of people to vote for this or that candidate, while at the international level the rational choice depends on what profits each state will gain as a result of this or that political decision. Having its roots in the economic sciences, rational choice theory is usually based on the cost-benefit calculations. Politics as a whole appears to be the area of the irrational choices, which can hardly be explained by the rational choice theories; this is why to prove this assumption we have to look closer at the examples of such cases with their relation to the theory. Rational choice theory and irrational decisions Ian Shapiro has called the rational choice theory 'a model that pretends to explain everything'. (Shapiro, 2000) The key word here is 'pretends', as it often appears that despite its popularity, the theory is far from being universal and has serious limitations in its application to the sphere of international relations. The collapse of the belief, that rational choice theory was the basis for the explanation of international political processes, has probably taken place during the falling of communist regime across Europe. The prominent political scientists have failed to explain the reasons and the grounds of such collapse. (Snidal, 2002) This was one of the most prominent irrational actions, which took place during the world political history and science. This was also the time, through which the post-behaviorists understood there were other means of explaining international political relations. In relation to the rational choice theory, the question appears as for the assumption, that this theory looks at the participants of the political processes as actors, who have their purpose and goal, and thus act on the rational basis; (Bates, 1997) but what about the Muslim Shahids, who commit suicides in the Middle East looking for some unknown and unreasonable idea If the rational choice is the analysis of costs and benefits of certain political actions, how can this theory explain these actions, which certainly influence the general international situation In this behavior only the one part of this theory is seen - the costs; the benefits are absolutely absent at the first glance, or they are vague and invisible for the analyst. While the subject of the suicide supposes such act to be the means of displaying his (her) political beliefs, such behavior is usually taken as absolutely irrational, leading to no profits and causing international conflicts. The rational choice theory here is proved to be unable of explaining these behaviors and choices through its statements. On the other hand, the actions of Shahids may be taken as rational on the basis of the assumption, that their behavior is not random, and is thoroughly organized, having solid grounds (whether religious or political), and thus cannot be considered irrational; however, even in this instance, with the absence of the benefits which this behavior brings, the rational choice theory is a weak argument. (Snidal, 2002) There is no doubt, that the rational choice theory is one of the leading theories in explaining the international political behaviors; it has also become the source of certain important political findings, but even in relation to these findings, the theory is often unable to give reasonable explanation to the processes, which take place. What is meant here is the assumption, that the two democracies never fight against each other. (Lebow, 1981) 'First discovered by researchers in the University of Michigan in the 1970s, it has since had a great impact upon the agenda of international relations research'. (Lalman, 1992) This idea is based on the statement, that democracies themselves tend to choose peace, and they usually protect themselves from the outer aggression, which makes them looking for compromise in their relations with other democracies, and thus avoid the state of war. This may seem as a rational choice of any democratic state - to avoid wars and to resolve the political disputes through peaceful means. However, how can the war between India and Pakistan be explained Are they not the democracies, or don't they tend to the peaceful solution of their problem In connection with cost-benefits' discussion, it comes into action that there exist both costs and benefits on the sides of both parties, but as the costs highly exceed the benefits, this choice is absolutely irrational, and cannot be explained by the rational choice theory. (Lebow, 1981) This is another example of the irrational decision-making, which comes into strict contradiction with the rational choice theory, but one important aspect of the rational decision should be taken into account, and this is the opinion expressed by Lalman in 1992: 'war is a rational decision for an actor that believes it has capability to win and that the benefits are not overweighed by costs'. It should be stated, that wealthy states traditionally don't start wars between each other; and only a wealthy state can afford starting the war with the expectation for the positive resolution. Thus the war between poor states is initially irrational and cannot be explained by the rational choice theories. (Lebow, 1981) Rational choice theory is the means of turning political science into mathematics or statistics (Bates, 1997). This is one of the features, which are disliked by many political scientists. 'Rational choice is more self-consciously theoretical than other research programs. Practitioners engage in model-building, and they make simplifying assumptions and draw logical consequences using the classic deductive method. Understandably, scholars whose approaches are inductive and empirical sometimes feel that rational choice models omit much of the rich detail they have painstakingly compiled' (Bates, 1997) Looking at rationality though the prism of the two above cases, another important question arises - should we look at the rationality from the viewpoint of the side analyst or from the viewpoint of the initiator of the action If the Shahids and their suicides seem to be irrational for us, does it mean that they are really irrational In connection with costs ad benefits, we have not found any benefits, but for the person, who commits suicide, certain stimuli exist, which are taken by this person as the benefits, and not simply the benefits, but the ones which overweight the costs. The irrationality of the choice at the moment the action is conducted is dubious; it becomes apparent on both sides only after the certain period of time and through the analysis of the consequences. The similar assumptions may be made in relation to the war and democracies. Lalman (1992) states, that on the one hand, there are cases of the two democracies fighting with each other, and on the other hand, democracies themselves are usually replaced by other regimes under the threat of war. It is important to understand, that the irrational choice of war (with the irrationality of this decision seen through the certain period of time) is still followed by the change of the regime, and this very choice is already rational, caused by the necessity of protecting the lives of the population. This second decision is clearly understood through the costs and benefits-explanation; but the very choice of the war state is hardly subject to any reasonable explanation. The main pathologies of the rational choice theory have been described by Green and Shapiro in their article in 1994. These pathologies are worth being considered in this paper, as they shed the light on the assumption that the theory appears to be weak in using it for the explanation of the irrational political decisions. First of all, Green and Shapiro state, that 'rational choice devices are often formulated in abstract and empirically intractable ways'. (Green & Shapiro, 1994) What is meant here is that the facts, which are often stated as the proofs of the strong rational choice grounds, appear to be unobservable and the variables are mostly hypothesized. (Green & Shapiro, 1994) As we touch the question of war between democracies, we often forget about the variables, which should really be taken into account, and use the variables, stated by the scientists, who sincerely believe in the truth of their idea. One of the important variables which are omitted in this case is the period, through which the country under analysis has been democratic, and the conditions of the war. The second pathology Green and Shapiro have named as 'curve-fitting', which means that the actions and events are usually explained ad hoc, and are explained in the way as to fit them to the postulates of the rational choice. (Green & Shapiro, 1994) The noted authors also write about the choice of the inaccurate proofs, and the implausible hypotheses, as well as the negligence towards the other existing explanations of the same event or notion. However, it is even more important to look as the 'pathology', to which the authors pay special attention. It is stated as follows: 'In the rare instances, in which no plausible variant of the theory appears to work, rational choice scholars engage in arbitrary domain restriction, conceding the inapplicability of rational choice in a given domain, and hence arbitrarily ignoring the theory-infirming evidence from that domain'. (Green & Shapiro, 1994) This assumption appears to be controversial to the main idea of this work. As we here discuss the inapplicability of the rational choice theory to the irrational political decision-making, this idea may become absolutely wrong in the light of above-said, as well as the proofs, which have been discussed earlier, and may also work as the means of neglecting certain areas of knowledge, thus creating the notion of the rational choice inapplicability in these instances. What I mean here, is that it is still yet probable, that any political behavior may be considered from the viewpoint of its rational basis. Politics as a whole cannot be supposed to be the activity which is totally at random. (Hooghe & Marks, 2004) It has its laws and principles, though as any behavior, there are certain cases, when rationality seems to be absent. The invalidity of the rational choice theory is clearly seen through the application of the voting question. Hooghe & Marks (2004) have developed a whole theory as for why the voters should not participate in the voting. In relation to costs and benefits, it appears that spending time for voting, and getting prepared to it, including gathering and processing the necessary information about the candidate or party, takes too much time and efforts, while these costs are not returned in the form of benefits. Thus, according to this idea the rational choice of every voter should be avoiding participation in such events. However, what we clearly see now all over the world is that people still take part in the elections, and vote, every time hoping that this will change their lives for the better. Is this political behavior irrational Whether or not, rational choice fails to explain it. (Hooghe & Marks, 2004) On the other hand, looking at the political processes, which take place in the EU at present, it is clear that the rational choice here is to come down to the unity of the European countries, which proved to be effective in all spheres of business, economics, politics, etc. Based on the rational choice, people of the newly joined countries have voted for their states to become the EU members. On the contrary, we have also become the witnesses of the EU Constitution rejection, which seemed to be the direct way to the unification of the member-sates. (Crombez & Corbett, 2000) This choice may also be viewed as rational on the side of those, who voted against Constitution, and irrational on the side of those, who were for its adoption. Thus, we have again come to the conclusion that not only rational choice theory is not capable of giving solid grounds for the explanation of 'irrational' political processes, but it is yet under question, what are the criteria for determining the political decision as irrational. Conclusion We have come herewith with the conclusion that irrational decision-making in international politics and international relations is difficult to be distinguished. There are no quite clear criteria for the definition of the irrationality of the decision-making. As the decision of starting the war may seem absolutely irrational to the one party, and thus impossible to be explained through the rational choice theory, it appears to be absolutely rational for another party, which is confident in its strength and sees the benefits of this war exceeding over its costs. However, no matter how the criteria may be defined, for the party which accepts any political decision as irrational, it finds it impossible to apply the postulates of the rational choice theory to explain this decision. Thus, the core assumption of the work has been proved though several examples on the international relations, but further research is still needed, with the accounting of the necessary variables, which have been omitted here for the aims of the present research. References Bates, Robert H. (1997). Comparative politics and rational choice. A review essay. American Political Science Review, 91, 699-704 Crombez, C. & Corbett, R. (2000). Understanding the EU legislative process: political scientists' and practitioners' perspectives. European Union Politics, 1(3), 363-381 Ferejohn, John and Satz, Debra. (1996). Unification, universalism and rational choice theory. In Jeffrey Friedman (ed.), The rational choice controversy, (pp. 71-84), New Haven: Yale University Press Green, Donald P. & Shapiro, Ian. (1994). Pathologies of rational choice theory: a critique of applications in political science. New Haven: Yale University press Hooghe, Liesbet & Marks, Gary. (2004). Does identity or economic rationality drive public opinion on European integration PS: Political Science and Politics, 37(3), 415-20 Lalman, David. (1992). War and reason. New Haven: Yale University Press Lebow, Richard. (1981). Between peace and war: the nature of international crisis. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press. Shapiro, Ian. (2000, September). A model that pretends to explain everything. The New York Times, p. 19 Snidal, D. (2002). Rational choice and international relations. In W. Carlnaes, B. Simmons and T. Risse, (eds.), Handbook of International Relations, (pp. 73-94) New York: Sage Waltz, Kenneth. (1979). Theory of international politics. 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