Extensive empirical evidence and theoretical developments in multiple disciplines stimulate a need to expand the range of rational choice models to be used as a foundation for the study of social dilemmas and collective action. After an introduction to the problem of overcoming social dilemmas through collective action, the remainder of this article is divided into six sections. The first briefly reviews the theoretical predictions of currently accepted rational choice theory related to social dilemmas. The second section summarizes the challenges to the sole reliance on a complete model of rationality presented by extensive experimental research. In the third section, I discuss two major empirical findings that begin to show how individuals achieve results that are “better than rational” by building conditions where reciprocity, reputation, and trust can help to overcome the strong temptations of short-run self-interest. The fourth section raises the possibility of developing second-generation models of rationality, the fifth section develops an initial theoretical scenario, and the final section concludes by examining the implications of placing reciprocity, reputation, and trust at the core of an empirically tested, behavioral theory of collective action.

This study examines public preferences over deficits, taxes, and spending. Using responses to public opinion questions designed for the purpose, the article assesses the state of preferences as expressed by individuals and as represented in government. One section examines the characteristics of individual preferences—their completeness, consistency, and coherence. Public opinion is remarkably well structured and overwhelmingly partial to the policy status quo. A second section explores the properties of mass preferences as they are aggregated by several different kinds of institutional voting rules. Institutions matter, at least to a point: Consistent institutional differences over federal budget policy trace directly to the diverse means by which institutions represent the public's positions. The conclusion assesses the meaning and import of the public's resistance to budget policy change.

A Plato opposed to democracy fills the literature, and while some scholars question whether Plato adequately captures Socrates' possibly favorable views of democracy, Plato himself remains a paragon of elitism. I argue that Plato's response to democracy is far more theoretically interesting than simple disdain for the unenlightened masses. Rather, in Book 8 of the Republic he explores the fundamental tensions of a regime identified with freedom and equality, which he presents as characterized by formlessness, and the epistemological and theoretical problems posed by the absence of forms (eidê). Eidê give structure and identity to regimes and to their citizens; they are necessary for intellection and philosophy, but they are also the grounds for compulsion. Plato's analysis of democracy thus becomes a more serious challenge for democratic theorists than previously recognized.

Clear fiscal policy effects appear in American state gubernatorial and legislative elections between 1968 and 1992, independent of the effects of incumbency, coattails, term limits, and macroeconomic conditions. The results show that accountability is generally stronger following a period of unified party control than under divided government. Voter reactions to taxes and spending relative to the state economy are conditional on expectations, which differ for each party. Net of these expectations, Republican gubernatorial candidates lose votes if their party is responsible for unanticipated increases in the size of the state budget; Democrats do not and, indeed, may be rewarded for small increases. Independent of this, the incumbent governor's party is punished in legislative elections for failing to maintain fiscal balance. Taken together, these results show how electoral accountability for fiscal policy outcomes is strong but highly contingent on a complex configuration of party labels, partisan control, expectations, and institutions.

It is often suggested that requiring juries to reach a unanimous verdict reduces the probability of convicting an innocent defendant while increasing the probability of acquitting a guilty defendant. We construct a model that demonstrates how strategic voting by jurors undermines this basic intuition. We show that the unanimity rule may lead to a high probability of both kinds of error and that the probability of convicting an innocent defendant may actually increase with the size of the jury. Finally, we demonstrate that a wide variety of voting rules, including simple majority rule, lead to much lower probabilities of both kinds of error.

A new solution to the ecological inference problem is used to examine split-ticket voting patterns across states and congressional districts in the 1988 elections. Earlier studies of ticket splitting used either aggregate data, which suffer from the “ecological fallacy” and threaten individual-level inferences, or survey data from small, unrepresentative samples. We produce more accurate estimates of the proportions of voters splitting their ballots in each state and district, which enables us to examine variations across geographical units. We also clarify the connection between ticket splitting and divided government and test several competing theories about the causes of both. We find, contrary to balancing arguments, that voters are not intentionally splitting tickets to produce divided government and moderate policies. In most cases split outcomes are a by-product of lopsided congressional campaigns that feature well-funded, high-quality candidates versus unknown competitors.

Scholars in both international relations and political theory have been turning their attention to Thucydides with increasing frequency but with dissimilar questions. We draw on both traditions of inquiry to reexamine Thucydides' view of Pericles. We argue that antithetical reasoning is present in the treatment of Pericles and is manifested in the opposition between the statesman's brilliance and the infelicitous consequences of his statecraft, as become evident in the work as a whole. This antithesis undermines the claim advanced by certain figures in the History, as well as by contemporary realists, that states (statesmen) should not be held to the same moral standards as individuals because to do so subverts their capacity to conduct prudent policy. We propose that Thucydides' work suggests, instead, that it is precisely when the norms of moral conduct are disrupted that states and individuals find it next to impossible to chart a prudent course of action.

In a departure from previous research, we focus on the dyadic relationship between lobbyists and committee members in the House of Representatives in order to test hypotheses about what factors shape the decisions of individual groups to lobby individual committee members. Our primary assumption is that organized interests seek to expand their supportive coalitions and affect the content and fate of bills referred to committees. In order to accomplish these goals, they give highest priority to lobbying their legislative allies in committee; allies may lobby other members of Congress on a group's behalf and shape legislation to conform with a group's preferences. But organizations with access to a strong resource base can move beyond their allies and work directly to expand support among undecided committee members and legislative opponents. Our empirical analysis provides evidence to support our expectations.

Scholars have debated the importance of declining political trust to the American political system. By primarily treating trust as a dependent variable, however, scholars have systematically underestimated its relevance. This study establishes the importance of trust by demonstrating that it is simultaneously related to measures of both specific and diffuse support. In fact, trust's effect on feelings about the incumbent president, a measure of specific support, is even stronger than the reverse. This provides a fundamentally different understanding of the importance of declining political trust in recent years. Rather than simply a reflection of dissatisfaction with political leaders, declining trust is a powerful cause of this dissatisfaction. Low trust helps create a political environment in which it is more difficult for leaders to succeed.

Causal inference in research testing rational choice models of unconventional political behavior has been hampered by the inability to use perceptions of the costs and benefits of participation at a given time to predict behavior that necessarily occurred in the past and by ambiguities associated with analyzing behavioral intentions instead of actual participation. Using panel data collected on a national sample in West Germany between 1987 and 1989, we show that variables from a “collective interest” model measured in 1987—individuals' dissatisfaction with the provision of collective goods, beliefs that group actions can be successful, and beliefs in the importance of their own participation—predict subsequent participation in collective protest activities. Variables corresponding to the private “selective incentives” associated with protest are found to be less relevant. Furthermore, we find that engaging in protest changes many of the perceptions that influence future participation. We discuss the implications for theories of political mobilization.

To investigate the effect of the Supreme Court on public opinion, we offer the conditional response hypothesis based on a theory of Supreme Court legitimacy and a microlevel social-psychological theory of attitude formation. Together these theories predict that the Court may affect public opinion when it initially rules on a salient issue, but that subsequent decisions on the same issue will have little influence on opinion. To test our predictions, we analyze public opinion data before and after the Supreme Court ruled in a highly visible abortion case (Webster v. Reproductive Health Services [1989]) and before and after three key capital punishment rulings (Furman v. Georgia [1972], Gregg v. Georgia [1976], and McCleskey v. Kemp [1987]). The results suggest that our theory is not issue bound but is generally applicable to how the Supreme Court affects public opinion when it rules in highly salient cases.

Contrary to much of the literature on collective opinion, I find that the low levels and uneven social distribution of political knowledge in the mass public often cause opinion surveys to misrepresent the mix of voices in a society. To assess the bias introduced by information effects, I compare “fully informed” collective preferences simulated from actual survey data to collective preferences revealed in the original data. Analysis of policy questions from the 1988 and 1992 American National Election Studies shows that group differences in knowledge, along with the public's modest average level of political knowledge, can cause significant distortions in measures of collective opinion. The mass public may appear more progressive on some issues and more conservative on others than would be the case if all citizens were equally well informed. To the extent that opinion polls influence democratic politics, this suggests that information effects can impair the responsiveness of governments to their citizens.

This article uses newly available British time-series data to analyze dynamic interrelationships among Labour vote intentions, perceptions that the Labour leader would make the best prime minister, and Labour party identification. Error-correction models reveal that best prime minister perceptions and party identification have important short- and long-run influences on vote intentions. Tests of rival models indicate that personal economic expectations outperform other economic evaluations in the vote intention and party identification analyses. National retrospective judgments perform well in analyses of best prime minister perceptions, and emotional reactions to economic conditions significantly influence these perceptions as well as party identification.

Although central banks possess a similar function across the industrial democracies, their institutional structures—their levels of independence—differ greatly. My explanation of this variation emphasizes the informational asymmetries of monetary policymaking. Government ministers have informational advantages in the policy process, potentially creating conflicts with backbench legislators and, in a multiparty government, coalition partners. An independent central bank can help alleviate these conflicts. Politicians will choose an independent bank (1) if government ministers, party legislators, and coalition partners have different monetary policy incentives and (2) if government ministers fear that party legislators and coalition partners will withdraw their support over a policy dispute. I statistically test the argument against the cross-national variation of central bank institutions. I also use the theoretical framework to examine episodes of institutional choice and reform in Germany, Britain, and Italy.

The argument that democratization can bring about war is a powerful critique suggesting limits to the linkage between democracy and peace. This research examines this claim. Our findings demonstrate that democratizing polities are substantially less war prone than previously argued. By focusing on the characteristics of the transition process, we show that as contemporary polities become more democratic they reduce their overall chances of being involved in war by approximately half. We also find that rocky or especially rapid transitions or reversals are associated with a countervailing effect; namely, they increase the risk of being involved in warfare. Both in the long term and while societies undergo democratic change, the risks of war are reduced by democratization and exacerbated by reversals in the democratization process. To reach these conclusions, we developed and applied a logit model linking authority characteristics and war involvement using Polity III and Correlates of War databases.

Political decisions are often biased in favor of special interests at the expense of the general public, and they are frequently inefficient in the sense that the losses incurred by the majority exceed the gains enjoyed by the minority. This article explains the bias in terms of information asymmetries and the free-rider problem. First, incumbents increase their reelection prospects by biasing policy toward groups that are better able to monitor their activities. Second, because smaller groups are better able to overcome the free-rider problem of costly monitoring, policy will be biased in their favor. Third, the effect of asymmetric monitoring on voter welfare is ambiguous. The inefficiencies created by the policy bias are offset by a positively valued selection bias: Incumbents of above-average quality are more likely to survive voter scrutiny than are low-quality types.