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Public Choice
An Introduction
Iain McLean (Author)
9780631138396, Wiley
Paperback / softback, published 29 May 1987
240 pages
22.9 x 15.4 x 1.7 cm, 0.369 kg
The 1968 Nobel Prize for Economics was awarded to one of the founders of public choice theory, James Buchanan, yet many people have only the vaguest idea what public choice is. The book offers and unusually clear and accessible introduction to an important subject. McLean examines the workings of public choice from two related perspectives - collective action and the aggregation of individual preferences into social consensus. The book highlights the paradox at the heart of collective action- that self-interest in the public domain is frequently counterproductive. National defense and clean air are things we all benefit from - they are public goods - but we tend to resist contributing to them. The first part of this book examines how government choice in such areas is shaped, and by whom- political entrepreneurs, bureaucrats, interest groups and ordinary citizens. McLean uses the idea of a public market in which politicians sell what they hope voters will buy, and further considers how and when people (and animals) co-operate to produce public goods even without government coercion. In the second part of the book the author examines the consequences of combining individual preferences, arguing that there is no straightforward way of adding them up to form a 'social ordering' and assesing the implications of this both for electoral reform and for the status of 'the will of the people'.
Part 1: Introduction to Public Choice Theory Chapter 1: What is Public Choice? The core principles of public choice Distinguishing public choice from traditional political science The economic model of political behavior Chapter 2: Individual Choice and Voting Behavior Rational choice theory and voter decision-making The median voter theorem Voter turnout and rational ignorance Part 2: Voting Systems and Political Competition Chapter 3: Voting Mechanisms Simple majority rule Plurality voting Condorcet's paradox and Arrow's Impossibility Theorem Chapter 4: Political Parties and Spatial Voting The spatial model of political competition Party platforms and electoral strategies The role of ideology in voting behavior Part 3: Collective Action and Interest Groups Chapter 5: Collective Action Problems The free-rider problem The logic of collective action Overcoming collective action challenges Chapter 6: Interest Groups and Lobbying The role of interest groups in the political process Lobbying strategies and political influence Rent-seeking behavior and its economic consequences Part 4: Government Institutions and Bureaucracy Chapter 7: Bureaucracy and Principal-Agent Problems The nature of bureaucracy Bureaucratic incentives and inefficiency Regulatory capture and its implications Chapter 8: Public Spending and Budgetary Processes The political economy of public spending Budgetary cycles and pork barrel politics The role of fiscal institutions Part 5: Applications and Criticisms of Public Choice Chapter 9: Public Choice in Practice Applications to environmental policy Public choice analysis of healthcare systems The political economy of trade policy Chapter 10: Criticisms and Debates in Public Choice The limitations of the rational choice assumption The role of altruism and social norms Public choice and the concept of "the public interest"
Subject Areas: Politics & government [JP]
