Choosing in Groups: Analytical Politics Revisited

by Michael C. Munger, Kevin M. Munger

Overview

This book is an introduction to the logic and analytics of group choice. To understand how political institutions work, it is important to isolate what citizens – as individuals and as members of society – actually want. This book develops a means of “representing” the preferences of citizens so that institutions can be studied more carefully. This is the first book to integrate the classical problem of constitutions with modern spatial theory, connecting Aristotle and Montesquieu with Arrow and Buchanan.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781107699625
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	01/12/2015
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	272
Product dimensions:	5.98(w) x 9.02(h) x 0.71(d)
Age Range:	15 - 18 Years

About the Author

Michael C. Munger is a Professor of Political Science and Economics and the Director of the Philosophy, Politics, and Economics program at Duke University. He formerly served as a staff economist at the US Federal Trade Commission. He has published four books and has written for the American Journal of Political Science, the American Political Science Review, the Journal of Law and Economics, and the Journal of Politics. He was North American editor of Public Choice from 2006 to 2010 and is a past president of the Public Choice Society. He currently co-edits The Independent Review. Munger has won three teaching awards at Duke, and he gave the 2012 Toby Davis Lecture at George Mason University.

Kevin M. Munger is a PhD student in New York University's Department of Politics, focusing on comparative political economy. Munger spent a year as an investigator at La Universidad del Desarrollo (UDD) in Santiago, Chile. He holds a degree in mathematics and economics from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.

Table of Contents

Part I. Basics: 1. The analysis of politics; 2. Becoming a group: the constitution; 3. Choosing in groups: an intuitive presentation; 4. The formal analytics of choosing in groups; Part II. Spatial Theory: 5. Politics as spatial competition; 6. Two dimensions: elusive equilibrium; Part III. Extensions: Collective Choice, Uncertainty, and Collective Action: 7. The collective-choice problem: impossibility; 8. Uncertainty; 9. Voting as a collective-action problem; Solutions to selected problems.

Editorial Reviews

"This is a substantially revised version of Melvin Hinich and Michael Munger’s 1997 book, Analytical Politics. With new and updated discussions, as well as material not covered in the previous publication, this book will be a useful tool to teach undergraduate courses on the topic of social choice."
Carles Boix, Princeton University

"I have repeatedly assigned Hinich and Munger’s volume in both undergraduate and graduate courses that introduce students to rational choice, game theory, and contemporary political thought. This new version handles spatial voting models extremely well and adds much more that wasn’t covered previously. The authors’ work is careful and deep, illustrating that they have gone to great lengths to add substantive content while making the book more accessible to a broader audience. This is a fantastic book."
Keith L. Dougherty, University of Georgia

From the Publisher