765
Rationality and Irrationality in Democracy
Rationality and Irrationality in Democracy
Thursday, 19 July 2018: 17:30-19:20
Location: 712 (MTCC SOUTH BUILDING)
RC45 Rational Choice (host committee) Language: English
Recent political climate in the U.S., Europe, and other developed societies causes serious concern for the efficacy and legitimacy of liberal democracy in the globalized world. Growing gap between rich and poor undermines the common interests among citizens in nation states, and the flood of immigrants across borders fuels fear and intolerance toward vulnerable people in each society. In spite of (or because of) such severe divides, some countries collectively chose to go back to the traditional nation state which is isolated from the global market. Whether such decisions are irrational or rational, however, would be not so clear both theoretically and empirically. Irrationality in politics, such as nationalism, might be related to, for instance, Jon Elster's arguments on emotion in the tradition of rational choice. Rationality in politics, on the other hand, has been a central topic in such theories of social sciences as collective decision and deliberative democracy. This session invites papers on rationality and/or irrationality in democracy with a variety of approaches such as formal models, quantitative analyses, experiments, and simulations. Papers targeting concrete empirical phenomena and paying attention to the congress theme are especially welcome
Session Organizer:
Oral Presentations