Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Tables and Figures
- Preface
- 1 Divided Government and Interbranch Bargaining
- 2 A Natural History of Veto Bargaining, 1945–1992
- 3 Rational Choice and the Presidency
- 4 Models of Veto Bargaining
- 5 Explaining the Patterns
- 6 Testing the Models
- 7 Veto Threats
- 8 Interpreting History
- 9 Conclusion
- References
- Index
- Titles in the series
3 - Rational Choice and the Presidency
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 20 January 2010
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Tables and Figures
- Preface
- 1 Divided Government and Interbranch Bargaining
- 2 A Natural History of Veto Bargaining, 1945–1992
- 3 Rational Choice and the Presidency
- 4 Models of Veto Bargaining
- 5 Explaining the Patterns
- 6 Testing the Models
- 7 Veto Threats
- 8 Interpreting History
- 9 Conclusion
- References
- Index
- Titles in the series
Summary
Reviewing a conference called to evaluate the state of presidential studies, George Edwards, John Kessel, and Bert Rockman note with somewhat acerbic wit,
Theory and rigor were the watchwords of the conference. These are values to which all participants could subscribe, so long as they remained undefined. … We have been conditioned to salivate at certain symbols of scientific progress – theory and rigor are words that appeal to these glands. But behind our operant conditioning (who gets rewarded for saying they are atheoretical or impressionistic?) we have different images of what these words mean.
(1993:34)It is plainly true that there are many ways to do good social science. Those who assemble data, those who conduct case studies, those who analyze others’ data, those who produce creative insights, those who take stock of what we know, and those who build theoretical models all make valuable contributions. “Theoretical” and “rigorous” are hardly synonyms for “good social science.”
Nonetheless, one of the goals of this book is to produce useful and interesting theory about the presidency in an age of divided government. The approach I take is characteristic of the new analytical or rational choice institutionalism. I focus on a specific, repeated, important phenomenon: veto bargaining. Then, I use rational choice theory to build several interrelated models of different aspects of the phenomenon. This approach is sufficiently novel – and controversial – in presidential studies to warrant an extended apologia.
WHY MODELS?
Solving puzzles is central to science. We see phenomena like those explored in Chapter 2, and ask why. Solving a puzzle means explaining it. Explaining it means finding and elaborating a causal mechanism for it.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Veto BargainingPresidents and the Politics of Negative Power, pp. 69 - 82Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2000