Rational Extremism

Ronald Wintrobe is Professor of Economics at the University of Western Ontario, where he also co-directs the Political Economy Research Group. Professor Wintrobe is the author of The Political Economy of Dictatorship (1998), and coauthor (with Albert Breton) of The Logic of Bureaucratic Conduct (1982). He is also coeditor (with Albert Breton, Gianluigi Galeotti and Pierre Salmon) of Rational Foundations of Democratic Politics (2003), Political Extremism and Rationality (2002), Understanding Democracy: Economic and Political Perspectives (1997) and Nationalism and Rationality (1995). All of the above titles were published by Cambridge University Press. He is also author or coauthor of many book chapters and articles in leading professional journals, and has written two radio programs on political economy for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.

• Introduction; 1. The problem of extremism; Part I. Groups: 2. Social interactions, trust and group solidarity; 3. Some illustrations and a general framework; Part II. Extremism: 4. The calculus of discontent; 5. Can suicide bombing be rational?; 6. Religion and suicide terror; Part III. Revolutions, Nationalism and Jihad: 7. Rational revolutions; 8. Slobodan Milosevic and the fire of nationalism; 9. 'Jihad vs McWorld' revisited; Conclusion; 10. Summary of propositions and policy implications.

Review of the hardback: 'The work that Ronald Wintrobe offers us is dense, original, and at times, provocative. He forces us to question his arguments instead of reading them passively. … Rational Extremism gives us ideas and allows us to connect it with the most advanced studies in the field of the contemporary social sciences. It is the hallmark of great books.' Sociétal