Analyzing Politics

Kenneth A. Shepsle is the George D. Markham Professor of Government and founding member of the Institute for Quantitative Social Science at Harvard University. He is the author or coauthor of several books, including Politics in Plural Societies: A Theory of Democratic Instability, The Giant Jigsaw Puzzle: Democratic Committee Assignments in the Modern House, Models of Multiparty Electoral Competition, Making and Breaking Governments, and Analyzing Politics: Rationality, Behavior, and Institutions. He has been a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences since 1990, and he is the recipient of fellowships by the Hoover Institution, the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, and the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences. Shepsle’s research focuses on formal political theory, congressional politics, public policy, and political economy.

• AcknowledgementsPart I Introduction 1 It Isn't Rocket Science, but...2 Rationality: The Model of Choice Part II Group Choice3 Getting Started with Group Choice Analysis4 Group Choice and Majority Rule5 Spatial Models of Majority Rule6 Strategic Behavior: Sophistication, Misrepresentation, and Manipulation7 Voting Methods and Electoral Systems Part III Cooperation, Collective Action, and Public Goods8 Cooperation9 Collective Action10 Public Goods, Externalities, and the CommonsPart IV Institutions11 Institutions: General Remarks12 Legislatures13 Bureaucracy and Intergovernmental Relations14 Leadership15 Courts and Judges16 Cabinet Government and Parliamentary Democracy17 Final LessonsIndex