Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-qsmjn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-19T19:40:21.278Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Rational-Choice Models and Asian Studies

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 March 2011

Daniel Little
Get access

Extract

The rational-choice paradigm has been attractive to many area specialists in their efforts to arrive at explanations of social and political behavior in various parts of the world. This model of explanation is simple yet powerful; we attempt to explain a pattern of social behavior or an enduring social arrangement as the aggregate outcome of the goal-directed choices of large numbers of rational agents. Why did the Nian rebellion occur? It was the result of the individual-level survival strategies of north China peasants (Perry 1980). Why did the central places of late imperial Sichuan conform to the hexagonal arrays predicted by central-place theory? Because participants—consumers, merchants, and officials—made rational decisions based on considerations of transport cost (Skinner 1964–65). Why was late imperial Chinese agriculture stagnant? Because none of the actors within the agricultural system had both the incentive and the capacity to invest in agricultural innovation (Lippit 1987).

Type
Articles
Information
The Journal of Asian Studies , Volume 50 , Issue 1 , February 1991 , pp. 35 - 52
Copyright
Copyright © The Association for Asian Studies, Inc. 1991

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

List of References

Axelrod, Robert. 1984. The Evolution of Cooperation. New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Bates, Robert, ed. 1988. Toward a Political Economy of Development: A Rational Choice Perspective. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Becker, Gary. 1976. The Economic Approach to Human Behavior. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Becker, Gary. 1986. An Economic Analysis of the Family. Dublin, Ireland: Economic and Social Research Institute.Google Scholar
Brenner, Robert. 1976. “Agrarian Class Structure and Economic Development in Pre-Industrial Europe.” Past and Present 70.Google Scholar
Chao, Kang. 1986. Man and Land in Chinese History: An Economic Analysis. Stanford: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Chen, Yung-Fa. 1986. Making Revolution: The Communist Movement in Eastern and Central China, 1937–1945. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Dalton, George. 1971. Economic Anthropology and Development. New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Dalton, George. 1969. “Theoretical Issues in Economic Anthropology.” Current Anthropology 10.Google Scholar
Elster, Jon. 1983. Explaining Technical Change. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Elster, Jon. 1989a. The Cement of Society: A Study of Social Order. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Elster, Jon. 1989b. Nuts and Bolts for the Social Sciences. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Elster, Jon, ed. 1986. Rational Choice. New York: New York University Press.Google Scholar
Geertz, Clifford. 1963. Agricultural Involution: The Process of Ecological Change in Indonesia. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Geertz, Clifford. 1971. The Interpretation of Cultures. New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Geertz, Clifford. 1980. Negara: The Theatre State in Nineteenth-Century Bali. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Geertz, Clifford. 1983. Local Knowledge. New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Geertz, Clifford. 1984. “Culture and Social Change: The Indonesian Case.” Man 19.Google Scholar
Hahn, Frank, and Hollis, Martin, eds. 1979. Philosophy and Economic Theory. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Hardin, Russell. 1982. Collective Action. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press.Google Scholar
Harsanyi, John C. 1982. “Morality and the Theory of Rational Behavior.” In Utilitarianism and Beyond; see Sen and Williams 1982.Google Scholar
Hookway, Christopher, and Pettit, Philip, eds. 1978. Action and Interpretation: Studies in the Philosophy of the Social Sciences. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Horton, Robin. 1970. “African Thought and Western Science.” In Rationality; see Wilson 1970.Google Scholar
Huang, Philip C. C. 1985. The Peasant Economy and Social Change in North China. Stanford: Stanford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lippit, Victor D. 1987. The Economic Development of China. Armonk, N.Y.: M. E. Sharpe.Google Scholar
Little, Daniel. 1988. “Collective Action and the Traditional Village.” Journal of Agricultural Ethics 1.Google Scholar
Little, Daniel. 1989. Understanding Peasant China: Case Studies in the Philosophy of Social Science. New Haven: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Little, Daniel. 1991. Varieties of Social Explanation: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Social Science. Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press.Google Scholar
Margolis, Howard. 1982. Selfishness, Rationality, and Altruism: A Theory of Social Choice. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Myers, Ramon H. 1970. The Chinese Peasant Economy. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Naquin, Susan. 1976. Millenarian Rebellion in China: The Eight Trigrams Uprising of 1813. New Haven: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Naquin, Susan. 1981. Shantung Rebellion: The Wang Lun Uprising of 1774. New Haven: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Nash, Manning. 1966. Primitive and Peasant Economic Systems. San Francisco: Chandler.Google Scholar
Oi, Jean Chun. 1989. State and Peasant in Contemporary China: The Political Economy of Village Government. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Olson, Mancur. 1965. The Logic of Collective Action: Public Goods and the Theory of Groups. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Pasternak, Burton. 1972. Kinship and Community in Two Chinese Villages. Stanford: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Pasternak, Burton. 1978. “The Sociology of Irrigation: Two Taiwanese Villages.” In Studies in Chinese Society; see Wolf 1978.Google Scholar
Perdue, Peter. 1987. Exhausting the Earth: State and Peasant in Hunan, 1500–1850. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Perry, Elizabeth J. 1980. Rebels and Revolutionaries in North China 1845–1945. Stanford: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Polanyi, Karl. 1957. The Great Transformation. Boston: Beacon Press.Google Scholar
Popkin, Samuel L. 1979. The Rational Peasant. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Rapoport, Anatol. 1966. Two-Person Game Theory. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.Google Scholar
Regan, Donald. 1980. Utilitarianism and Co-operation. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Roemer, John, ed. 1986. Analytical Marxism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Rowe, William T. 1984. Hankow: Commerce and Society in a Chinese City, 1796–1889. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Sahlins, Marshall. 1972. Stone Age Economics. New York: Aldine Publishing.Google Scholar
Sahlins, Marshall. 1976. Culture and Practical Reason. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Schelling, Thomas C. 1978. Micromotives and Macrobehavior. New York: Norton.Google Scholar
Schultz, Theodore W. 1964. Transforming Traditional Agriculture. New Haven: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Scott, James C. 1976. The Moral Economy of the Peasant. New Haven: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Sen, A. K. 1982a. Choice, Welfare and Measurement. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Sen, A. K. 1982b. “Rational Fools.” In Choice, Welfare and Measurement; see Sen 1982.Google Scholar
Sen, A. K. 1987. On Ethics and Economics. New York: Basic Blackwell.Google Scholar
Sen, Amartyas, and Williams, Bernard. 1982 Utilitarianism and Beyond. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shirk, Susan L. 1982. Competitive Comrades: Career Incentives and Student Strategies in China. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Simon, Herbert. 1979. “From Substantive to Procedural Rationality.” In Philosophy and Economic Theory; see Hahn and Hollis 1979.Google Scholar
Skinner, G. William. 1964–65. “Marketing and Social Structure in Rural China.” 3 pans, Journal of Asian Studies 24:1, 24:2, 24:3.Google Scholar
Taylor, Charles. 1985. Philosophy and the Human Sciences: Philosophical Papers 2. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Taylor, Lance, ed. 1990. Socially Relevant Policy Analysis: Structural Computable General Equilibrium Models for the Developing World. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Taylor, Michael. 1982. Community, Anarchy and Liberty. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Taylor, Michael. 1987. The Possibility of Cooperation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Taylor, Michael. 1988. “Rationality and Revolutionary Collective Action.” In Rationality and Revolution; see Taylor 1988.Google Scholar
Taylor, Michael, ed. 1988. Rationality and Revolution. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Thompson, E. P. 1963. The Making of the English Working Class. New York: Vintage.Google Scholar
Tong, james. 1988. “Rational Outlaws: Rebels and Bandits in the Ming Dynasty, 1368–1644.” In Rationality and Rebellion; see Taylor 1988.Google Scholar
Turner, Victor. 1974. Dramas, Fields, and Metaphors: Symbolic Action in Human Society. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Von Wright, Georg Henrik. 1971. Explanation and Understanding. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Walder, Andrew G. 1986. Communist Neo-Traditionalism: Work and Authority in Chinese Industry. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Wilson, Bryan, ed. 1970. Rationality. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Winch, Peter. 1970. “Understanding a Primitive Society.” In Rationality; see Wilson 1970.Google Scholar
Wolf, Arthur P. 1978. “Gods, Ghosts, and Ancestors.” In Studies in Chinese Society; see Wolf 1978.Google Scholar
Wolf, Arthur P., ed. 1978. Studies in Chinese Society. Stanford: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Wolf, Eric R. 1969. Peasant Wars of the Twentieth Century. New York: Harper and Row.Google Scholar