Formal Models of Domestic Politics offers a unified and accessible approach to canonical and important new models of politics. Intended for political science and economics students who have already taken a course in game theory, this new edition retains the widely appreciated pedagogic approach of the first edition. Coverage has been expanded to include a new chapter on nondemocracy; new material on valance and issue ownership, dynamic veto and legislative bargaining, delegation to leaders by imperfectly informed politicians, and voter competence; and numerous additional exercises. Political economists, comparativists, and Americanists will all find models in the text central to their research interests. This leading graduate textbook assumes no mathematical knowledge beyond basic calculus, with an emphasis placed on clarity of presentation. Political scientists will appreciate the simplification of economic environments to focus on the political logic of models; economists will discover many important models published outside of their discipline; and both instructors and students will value the classroom-tested exercises. This is a vital update to a classic text.
Dedicated to the empirical analysis of data from the world of international relations, SSIP scholars tend to focus on interstate conflicts, civil wars, and conflict management. The range of perspectives in this edited volume provide a comprehensive introduction to SSIP theory and methodology. Fresh approach traces intellectual development of research approaches rather than merely summarizing results Features original SSIP material not found in other books Includes a number of essays with a broader assessment of SSIP methods - ideal for younger scholars interested in the approach Includes recent SSIP analyses exploring issues such as civil wars
The contributors examine a century of American experience to illustrate how the United States determines its security policies. While scholars have typically focused on "outside factors," such as international pressures, constraints, and opportunities, this collection of essays shows that decisions about strategy are critically shaped by domestic politics--political ideologies, state structure, and societal interest.
Explaining change in the behavior of states and other international actors is at the core of the study of international relations. The proficiency with which states respond to changes in the international environment has important consequences for world peace and the world economy as well as domestic politics and well being. One way to understand changes in behavior is to consider whether and how states learn. Key to understanding this is considering how the groups responsible for making decisions learn and make decisions. Andrew Farkas presents an evolutionary theory of how states adjust their foreign policies in response to international changes. Employing both formal models and computer simulations, Farkas explores the relative efficacy of a wide range of alternative strategies for dealing with unanticipated changes in the international environment, and goes a long way toward reconciling the success of rational choice modeling with criticism from psychological studies of decision making. Farkas looks at the way small groups charged with making policy decisions work. He explicitly models the process of search and policy selection. He demonstrates how a group of disparate individuals can act as if it were a unitary rational actor and provides the first endogenous account of when and why groups curtail their search for satisfactory policies. Farkas uses the general model to explore the effects of different institutional designs on the decisionmaking process. This book will be of interest to scholars of international relations, learning models and group processes. Andrew Farkas is Assistant Professor of Political Science, Rutgers University.