Collective Action

by Russell Hardin

Book Overview

Public choice, an important subdiscipline in the field of political theory, seeks to understand how people and societies make decisions affecting their collective lives. Relying heavily on theoretical models of decision making, public choice postulates that people act in their individual interests in making collective decisions. As it happens, however, reality does not mirror theory, and people often act contrary to what the principal public choice...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0801828198
• ISBN13: 9780801828195
• Release Date: June 1982
• Publisher: Rff Press
• Length: 268 Pages
• Weight: 0.80 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 6.0" x 8.9"

Customer Reviews

A challenging book

The personality and action of groups as defined by a games interaction is what makes this book special. In most cases the arguments are hard and the text is dense, but the idea that large groups of people use strategy as to best score is clear. Not everyone plays to win, not everybody can win in a society that constrains individual potential. That the prisoner's dilemma should be a theme of what is political science text that speaks to the math is puzzle and wonder.