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Economics and Politics: Towards a Dialogue between Economics and Political Science
Author(s) -
Kriesi Hanspeter
Publication year - 2005
Publication title -
swiss political science review
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.632
H-Index - 30
eISSN - 1662-6370
pISSN - 1424-7755
DOI - 10.1002/j.1662-6370.2005.tb00378.x
Subject(s) - skepticism , politics , positive economics , scope (computer science) , field (mathematics) , political methodology , realism , action (physics) , epistemology , spelling , point (geometry) , sociology , economics , social science , political philosophy , political science , systems theory in political science , law , philosophy , computer science , physics , mathematics , geometry , quantum mechanics , pure mathematics , programming language , linguistics
In this essay, I present a sceptical point of view with regard to the introduction of the economists' models in political science. Based on examples drawn from the field of political behavior and public opinion research, I discuss the lack of realism and the limitation of the theoretical scope of the models the political scientists are expected to import. My discussion has no pretension of being original. By spelling out the unattractive implications of the narrow assumptions of the economists' theory of action for a political scientist working empirically, it rather attempts to contribute to the clarification of some of the impediments to an improved dialogue between the practitioners of the two disciplines which have long been divided by the theoretical approach of neoclassical economics.