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Peter C. Ordeshook and Kenneth A. Shepsle If the inaugural date of modern economics is set at 1776 with the publication of Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations, then the analytical tradition in the study of politics is not even a decade younger, commencing nine years later with the publication of the Marquis de Condorcet's Essai sur l'application de l'analyse iz la probabilite des decisions rendues iz la pluralite des voix. The parallel, however, stops there for, unlike Smith and other classical economists who laid an intel lectual foundation upon which a century of cumulative scientific research pro ceeded, analytical political science suffered fits and starts. Condorcet, himself, acknowledges the earlier work (predating the Essai by some fourteen years) of Borda and, from time to time during the nineteenth century, their contributions were rediscovered by Dodgson, Nanson, and other political philosophers and arithmeticians. But, by century's end, there was nothing in political science to compare to the grand edifice of general equilibrium theory in neoclassical eco nomics. Despite roots traversing two centuries, then, the analytical study of poli tics is a twentieth-century affair. The initial inspiration and insight of Condorcet was seized upon just after World War II by Duncan Black, who wrote several papers on the equilibrium properties of majority rule in specific contexts (Black, 1948a,b). He expanded upon these themes in his now deservedly famous monograph, The Theory of xi PREFACE xii Committees and Elections, and the lesser-known essay with R. A.
List of contents
I Equilibrium and Disequilibrium: The Conceptual Controversy Framed.- 1 Implications from the Disequilibrium of Majority Rule for the Study of Institutions.- 2 Political Disequilibrium and Scientific Inquiry: A Comment on William H. Riker's "Implications from the Disequilibrium of Majority Rule for the Study of Institutions".- 3 An Altimeter for Mr. Escher's Stairway: A Comment on William H. Riker's "Implications from the Disequilibrium of Majority Rule for the Study of Institutions".- 4 A Reply to Ordeshook and Rae.- II Alternative Views of Political Equilibrium.- 5 Equilibrium, Disequilibrium, and the General Possibility of a Science of Politics.- 6 The Limitations of Equilibrium Analysis in Political Science.- 7 Instability and Development in the Political Economy.- 8 On the Properties of Stable Decision Procedures.- 9 An Experimental Test of Solution Theories for Cooperative Games in Normal Form.- III Equilibrium Analysis in Practice.- 10 Political Inequality: An Economic Approach.- 11 Sophisticated Voting under the Plurality Procedure.- 12 The Role of Imperfections of Health Insurance in Voter Support for Safety Regulation.- 13 The Entry Problem in a Political Race.- References.- List of Contributors.
