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THE POWERS THAT BE AND THE POWERS THAT DO: AN “ECONOMIC” APPROACH
Author(s) -
BEACKON S.G.,
GOODIN R.E.
Publication year - 1976
Publication title -
european journal of political research
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 3.267
H-Index - 95
eISSN - 1475-6765
pISSN - 0304-4130
DOI - 10.1111/j.1475-6765.1976.tb00527.x
Subject(s) - power (physics) , economics , positive economics , rational choice theory (criminology) , object (grammar) , law and economics , microeconomics , epistemology , computer science , law , political science , philosophy , artificial intelligence , physics , quantum mechanics
Rational choice models of bargaining power are usually held to justify the pluralist methodology of decision analysis. This paper rejects this view and argues that such models are able to combine the pluralists’ concern with overt behaviour and the operationalizability of the concept of power with their critics’ emphasis upon the systemic or structural features of power and its cognates. We overcome charges of conservative bias which tend to be directed at rational choice theories by deriving from the model reasons why a rational actor would object to concentrations of power within his community. A theory which provides us with a measure of power which is at least notionally empirical and is capable of determining why, and to what extent moral sensibilities are offended by power concentrations would, we feel, enable the discipline to throw off the straitjacket which has constrained the analysis of power over the past two decades.