Games Real Actors Play

by Scharpf, Fritz W.

• ISBN13: 9780813368795
• ISBN10: 0813368790
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 1997-08-01
• Publisher: Westview Pr

Summary

Games Real Actors Playprovides a persuasive argument for the use of basic concepts of game theory in understanding public policy conflicts. Fritz Scharpf criticizes public choice theory as too narrow in its examination of actor motives and discursive democracy as too blind to the institutional incentives of political parties. With the nonspecialist in mind, the author presents a coherent actor-centered model of institutional rational choice that integrates a wide variety of theoretical contributions, such as game theory, negotiation theory, transaction cost economics, international relations, and democratic theory.Games Real Actors Playoffers a framework for linking positive theory to the normative issues that necessarily arise in policy research and employs many cross-national examples, including a comparative use of game theory to understand the differing reactions of Great Britain, Sweden, Austria, and the Federal Republic of Germany to the economic stagflation of the 1970s.

Author Biography

Fritz W. Scharpf is codirector of the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies in Cologne, Germany, and a former director of the International Institute of Management and Administration, Wissenschaftszentrum, Berlin. He has taught at the Yale Law School, the University of Chicago Law School, and at the University of Konstanz. He has published widely on constitutional law, democratic theory, policy formation and policy implementation, political economy, negotiation theory, and game theory.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	p. xv
Introduction	p. 1
Notes	p. 18
Policy Research in the Face of Complexity	p. 19
Notes	p. 34
Actor-Centered Institutionalism	p. 36
Notes	p. 49
Actors	p. 51
Notes	p. 67
Actor Constellations	p. 69
Notes	p. 93
Unilateral Action in Anarchic Fields and Minimal Institutions	p. 97
Notes	p. 114
Negotiated Agreements	p. 116
Notes	p. 147
Decisions by Majority Vote	p. 151
Notes	p. 168
Hierarchical Direction	p. 171
Notes	p. 193
Varieties of the Negotiating State	p. 195
Notes	p. 214
A Game-Theoretical Interpretation of Inflation and Unemployment in Western Europe	p. 217
Notes	p. 237
References	p. 240
Efficient Self-Coordination in Policy Networks -- a Simulation Study	p. 245
Notes	p. 273
References	p. 276
References	p. 281
About the Book and Author	p. 303
Index	p. 305
Table of Contents provided by Publisher. All Rights Reserved.