William C. Mitchell

The Shape of Political Theory To Come: From Political Sociology to Political Economy

0 Political Science has only recently undergone a revolution of sorts in the definition of its mission, problems, and methods; that revolution has been aptly termed &dquo;The Behavioral Persuasion&dquo; by one of its key figures, Heinz Eulau,l and deemed a &dquo;successful protest&dquo; by Robert A. Dahl.2 No doubt the claims and achievements of that doughty band of revolutionists have been exaggerated by friend and foe, and no doubt we will soon agree that the changes it introduced were not only necessary, but that they were hardly as momentous as the original foes feared and behaviorists hoped. In any event, as we emerge from one revolution we seem to be headed into another not a

The Calculus of Consent: Enduring contributions to public choice and political science

Although the early 1960s were an exciting era for political scientists it was not an auspicious period in which to publish The Calculus of Consent (1962). A theory based on methodological individualism or rational utility maximization flew in the face of the high-flying behavioralism then the rage among young, aspiring political analysts. Behavioralisms commitments stood and remain in stark contrast to those of The Calculus. It was Social Psychology vs. Economics. And the latter lost; in the fact, it was no contest.

Political science and public choice: 1950–70

The early contributors to Public Choice did not find a sympathetic reception among political scientists. During the years 1950-70, political scientists were either indifferent to or hostile to the emerging field of rational choice in which the approach and tools of economics are applied to politics. In the essay that follows I attempt to explain this situation and why another revolution – the behavioral – dominated political science for more than twenty years. Despite the prominence of rational choice in some political science journals, that dominance continues, a matter I hope to address in a subsequent article.

The Shape of Public Choice to Come: Some Predictions and Advice

In the normal course of events, elders are sometimes called upon to reflect on the past while the more youthful set about deciding the future. For the most part, I shall honor the dictum but offer some unsolicited advice on what needs to be done and be so bold as to predict these suggestions will be acted upon — a kind of self-fulfilling prophecy. Of course, the advice may be rejected or ignored. What, then?

Pathological politics: The anatomy of government failure

A pathology of politics is meaningless without a normative foundation--in this case, efficiency, a much misunders tood and abused term among noneconomists. Here it refers to a measure of how well society provides for the material wants of its members. This simple definition is in accord with the more precise one of Vilfredo Pareto, namely, whether a given policy, action, or allocation is able to improve the subjective well-being of anyone without diminishing that of others. Such a result is said to be Pareto optimal. A polity or economy producing huge quantities of unwanted goods and services even at the lowest cost is not considered efficient. No one would be made better off and indeed many would be worse off since the resources could be allocated for more valued uses. So our chief concern is with allocative efficiency and secondarily with technical efficiency, that is, producing something at the lowest cost. We are concerned with meeting individual preferences and employing resources in their most valued uses. Despite the importance of individual preferences in democracies, a number of otherwise attractive political features have the unhappy facility of violating Paretian optimality. The two most prominent involve redistribution of income. Redistributive gains dominate efficiency considerations in policy discussions, and democratic institutions encourage this redistributive propensity. In addition, democracy has an unfortunate but distinct penchant for enacting inefficient proposals--proposals that make some better off but at the expense of others or, even worse, that make everyone worse off in the long run. By choosing policies and rules that produce greater costs than benefits and failing to enact those having greater benefits than costs, citizens fail to achieve their highest welfare. Sources of inefficiency in the political process may be usefully categorized in six ways: (1) perverted incentives, (2) collective provision of private wants, (3) deficient signaling mechanisms, (4) electoral rules and the distortion of preferences, (5) institutional myopia, and (6) dynamic difficulties.

The American Polity and the Redistribution of Income

a &dquo;muddling through&dquo; operation in which decision-making is highly decentralized and interdependent, and that decision-makers choose under conditions of considerable uncertainty with a variety of factual and normative constraints such that their choices are usually less than optimal, and that no one gets or reaches his most preferred position. Each of these theories has something to be said in its behalf and each can be

11. The Politician and the Political Scientist

Though the political scientist may learn much from the politician, the reverse is not the case. Lawyers, economists, and others are more useful to politicians; traditional political science lends experts on detail sometimes. But behaviorism promises to inform the politician and help him control his en vironment, leading to the conviction that behaviorism is the path to an instrumentally potent political science.