Analyzing Politics

Kenneth A. Shepsle is the George D. Markham Professor of Government and founding member of the Institute for Quantitative Social Science at Harvard University. He is the author or coauthor of several books, including Politics in Plural Societies: A Theory of Democratic Instability, The Giant Jigsaw Puzzle: Democratic Committee Assignments in the Modern House, Models of Multiparty Electoral Competition, Making and Breaking Governments, and Analyzing Politics: Rationality, Behavior, and Institutions. He has been a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences since 1990, and he is the recipient of fellowships by the Hoover Institution, the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, and the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences. Shepsle’s research focuses on formal political theory, congressional politics, public policy, and political economy.

Acknowledgements
Part I Introduction


1 It Isn't Rocket Science, but...
2 Rationality: The Model of Choice


Part II Group Choice
3 Getting Started with Group Choice Analysis
4 Group Choice and Majority Rule
5 Spatial Models of Majority Rule
6 Strategic Behavior: Sophistication, Misrepresentation, and Manipulation
7 Voting Methods and Electoral Systems


Part III Cooperation, Collective Action, and Public Goods
8 Cooperation
9 Collective Action
10 Public Goods, Externalities, and the Commons
Part IV Institutions
11 Institutions: General Remarks
12 Legislatures
13 Bureaucracy and Intergovernmental Relations
14 Leadership
15 Courts and Judges
16 Cabinet Government and Parliamentary Democracy
17 Final Lessons
Index