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This provocative book argues that, very often, people may benefit from being constrained in their options or from being ignorant. The three long essays that constitute this book revise and expand the ideas developed in Jon Elster's classic study Ulysses and the Sirens. It is not simply a new edition of the earlier book though; many of the issues merely touched on before are explored here in much more detail. Elster shows how seemingly disparate examples that limit freedom of action reveal similar patterns, so much so that he proposes a new field of study: constraint theory. The book is written in Elster's characteristically vivid style and will interest professionals and students in philosophy, political science, psychology, and economics. ... Read more

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Customer Reviews (1)

Excellent book if you understand its opposition
I read this book as an important contribution to the call for a reappropriation of reason and rationality (and philosophy in general) by progressives and communitarians.

The book can get a bit technical, but an important pointer that helped me gain footing is to read it as a critique of the model of rational agency employed by right-wing economists. The right-wing economist begins from the assumption that rationality consists only in the strategies an agent employs to satisfy his subjective preferences, without recognizing her own normative role in applying such a model and in refusing to engage the question of (the objective) reason in the formation of preferences.

The author briefly and gracefully explains the work of Sartre (and byimplication most of postmodernist existentialism, poststructuralism, etc) as a self-understood irrational dead-end, an impasse, for progressives and communitarians which can bring no help or critique in addressing the right-wing appropriation of rationality.

... Read more

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This book is an expanded and revised edition of the author's critically acclaimed volume Nuts and Bolts for the Social Sciences. In twenty-six succinct chapters, Jon Elster provides an account of the nature of explanation in the social sciences.He offers an overview of key explanatory mechanisms in the social sciences, relying on hundreds of examples and drawing on a large variety of sources-psychology, behavioral economics, biology, political science, historical writings, philosophy and fiction.Written in accessible and jargon-free language, Elster aims at accuracy and clarity while eschewing formal models. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (9)

A must have for understanding society
This book provides ideas and explanations for better understanding social behavior and helps avoiding pitfalls. I found it particularly interesting how behavior that on the surface looks stupid/irrational has in fact a logic to it (e.g. tipping). It scans a wide spectrum and even provides arguments on how elections should be and under what circumstances the constitutional court should be dismissed. Highly recommended to anyone curious about society.

More Nuts and Bolts for the Social Sciences
As the title suggests, this book is an expanded and revised edition. As a non-professional and autodidact in the field of social sciences, I too find this book a gem as the other reviewers have so indicated. The book is divided into five (5) sections:

1) Explanations and Mechanisms
2) The Mind
3) Action
4) Lessons From The Natural Sciences
5) Interaction

Sections 2-5 are must reads if you are into the social sciences, but I found the first Section on Explanations and Mechanisms just a skosh on the highbrow side. However, we are talking about someone that has spent over 40 years on his work. Outside this very slight discomfort on my part, my copy is marked-up extensively which is a good indication that I found this fine addition to the social sciences worthy of my time and effort.

Though this book is somewhat on off the beaten track so to speak, other fine works on the social sciences that are worth your attention are Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion (polymath classic), The Psychology of Judgment & Decision Making (classic), How We Know What Isn't So (very good), Mean Markets and Lizard Brains (Hidden Gem), Seeking Wisdom: From Darwin to Munger (Very Hidden Gem), or Poor Charlie's Almanack (Charlie's Insights).

Flawless Victory
With no footnotes, no jargon, no namedropping and (almost) no mathmatics, this book clears all the conceptual underbrush away from the foundations of the social and behavioral sciences.Reading it was like watching an intellectual kung fu master in a rapid-fire series of celebrity deathmatches.As soon as Elster has dispatched Milton Friedman (Whup-POW!), he moves on to Steven Jay Gould.He chops ideas up into neat 10-page sections, says what he has to say, then cracks his knuckles and moves on.He does this so effortlessly that I found myself scratching my head ("how did I not see this before?") at the end of each section.It's not exactly fun - the reading can be dense - but it can be thrilling to simply feel the dust and cobwebs shoot out of your ears.I learned more in 500 pages than in 6 years of undergraduate survey courses.Highly, highly recommended.

An amazing vision of the whole of social science
For the past forty years, Jon Elster has attempted to explain things ranging from the emotions to technological change. The result is dozens of books (and even more papers) in three languages across four universities. And throughout, his work has not just been exemplary social science, but has always struggled with the question of what social science _should be_ -- what kinds of explanations are legitimate, which techniques should be used, and so on.

As he reaches his late sixties, it is understandable if he begins to think of his legacy. That certainly would help explain his latest book, _Explaining Social Behavior: More Nuts and Bolts for the Social Sciences_ (Cambridge University Press, 2007), a 500-page masterpiece that I expect will be seen as the summation of a brilliant career.

It's a book unlike any other and, as a result, unless read from start to finish can seem bizarre, if only because one has little sense of what the book is trying to do. It is not a guidebook, or a textbook, or a piece of social science in itself. In short, it is nothing less than an attempt to summarize an idealized vision of the whole of social science in simple language.

The book's foundational assumption (as implied by its title) is that the goal of social science is to discover explanations for social phenomena. It begins by describing what explanations are and discussing their different forms. But the bulk of the book consists of tools that can be used in explanations: emotions, norms, time discounting, weakness of will, magical thinking, cognitive dissonance, heuristics and biases, rationality, irrationality, neuroscience, evolution, externalities, game theory, pluralistic ignorance, informational cascades, collective action, cyclical preferences, institutions, etc. -- in short, the entire toolkit of the social sciences.

Just as amazing as the breadth topics is the way in which they're covered. Elster explains each phenomenon clearly and concisely, so that any educated reader can understand them with little effort, without ever sacrificing intellectual depth. His explanations are peppered with examples from an amazing variety of sources: ancient history, recent history, personal experience, the classics of social science (e.g. Tocqueville), the great philosophers (Montaigne, Pascal, Mill), and classic novelists (e.g. Proust). The result is a book which not just introduces readers to the discoveries of the social sciences but to the intellectual world as a whole. Bibliographical notes following each chapter as well as the conclusion provide a rich guide for further exploration.

And yet it's not simply a compendium of interesting results in the social sciences, but attempts to defend a particular conception of what the social sciences should be. In the conclusion, Elster defends his notion of social science as the attempt to discover particular explanations for particular phenomena against the "soft obscurantism" of the literary theorists and the "hard obscurantism" of the economists. As part of this, he turns his back on the notion of rational-choice models being an explanation in themselves, noting that their many assumptions are in desperate need of empirical defense.

In response to an earlier draft of this review, Elster wrote "I'm glad you appreciate the details in my book, but you're missing the big picture, which is that there isn't any." Instead of trying to build a Grand Theory which explains all of social life, we should try to build explanations of particular phenomena from the nuts and bolts we have lying around. And "even if a dominant explanation of a given event or episode is discarded and then resurrected, the building blocks or mechanisms at work in the discarding and resurrection remain. The repertory, or the size of the toolbox, does not shrink."

For anyone who cares about social science, Elster has done an amazing service in clearly describing the toolbox's contents and defending its importance.

Simply the best: read it at least twice
I read this book twice. The first time, I thought that it was excellent, the best compendium of ideas of social science by arguably the best thinker in the field. I took copious notes, etc. I agreed with its patchwork-style approach to rational decision making. I knew that it had huge insights applicable to my refusal of general theories [they don't work], rather limit ourselves to nuts and bolts [they work].
Then I started reading it again, as the book tends to locate itself by my bedside and sneaks itselfin my suitcase when I go on a trip. It is as if the book wanted me to read it.It is what literature does to you when it is at its best. So I realized why: it had another layer of depth --and the author distilled ideas from the works of Proust, La Rochefoucault, Tocqueville, Montaigne, people with the kind of insights that extend beyond the ideas, and that makes you feel that a reductionist academic treatment of the subject will necessary distort it [& somehow Elster managed to combine Montaigne and Kahneman-Tversky].So as an anti-Platonist I finally found a rigorous treatment of human nature that is not Platonistic --not academic (in the bad sense of the word).
Nassim Nicholas Taleb ... Read more

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The question addressed in this challenging new book is: What binds societies together and prevents them from disintegrating into chaos and war?Elster analyzes two concepts of social order: stable, predictable patterns of behavior, and cooperative behavior.The book examines various aspects of collective action and bargaining from the perspective of rational choice theory and the theory of social norms.It is a fundamental assumption of the book that social norms provide an important kind of motivation for action that is irreducible to rationality. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Every book of Jon Elster's is a treasure
Jon Elster is a rarity among contemporary social scientists. I guess it takes a finer mind to appreciate one of the greatest analytic talent, alive or dead, huh?

Another Junk work for this professor to put on his resume
This is a sociology book thats written in dense, deliberately wordy, intended to used on this professors resume to impress employers who probably wouldn't read the book rather flip through it and read a paragraph or two and come to the conclusion that "oh this is technical, he must be very smart", no doubt. Having read this book I can say its junk. Its hard to read and the points the author makes are trivial. Its one of those books you'll only find stashed away in a college library, never to be used or referenced by anyone. 287 pages of paper wasted. Don't waste you're money. It's an expense waste of money. ... Read more

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An analysis of transitional justice - retribution and reparation after a change of political regime - from Athens in the Fifth Century B.C. to the present. Part I, 'The Universe of Transitional Justice', describes more than thirty transitions, some of them in considerable detail, others more succinctly. Part II, 'The Analytics of Transitional Justice', proposes a framework for explaining the variations among the cases - why after some transitions wrongdoers from the previous regime are punished severely and in other cases mildly or not at all, and victims sometimes compensated generously and sometimes poorly or not at all. After surveying a broad range of justifications and excuses for wrongdoings and criteria for selecting and indemnifying victims, the book concludes with a discussion of three general explanatory factors: economic and political constraints, the retributive emotions, and the play of party politics. ... Read more

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Jon Elster has written a comprehensive, wide-ranging book on the emotions in which he considers the full range of theoretical approaches. Drawing on history, literature, philosophy and psychology Elster presents a complete account of the role of the emotions in human behavior. Combining methodological and theoretical arguments with empirical case studies and written with Elster's customary verve and economy, this book will have a broad appeal to those in philosophy, psychology, economics, political science, as well as literary studies, history, and sociology. ... Read more

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Superlative work about emotions
This superlative work belongs on the shelf of any serious student of art, literature, philosophy and psychology - not to mention those readers who seek self-knowledge. Author Jon Elster explores the complex cognitive antecedents and consequences of emotional experience. Noting that much of what society needs to know about emotions is inaccessible in the psychology laboratory, he makes original, insightful use of literary and philosophical sources. He uses the work of such authors as Francois de La Rochefoucauld, Michel de Montaigne, Jean de La Bruyère and Alexis de Tocqueville to examine how emotional mechanisms function. This approach sheds light on the emotions and on the way you might read literature or listen to music. We highly recommend this book and find it valuable not only for what it says, but for what it inspires. It is capable of changing how you think and feel in ways that are (just as emotions themselves) far from predictable.

Endlessly helpful- making psychology for the social sciences
I cannot praise this book enough. The writing is clear, the thinking is meticulous and infinitely clever, and the usefullness of understanding thedifferent theories of the emotive being in the social scinces cannot beover-emphasized.

This book is Elster's best since "PoliticalPsychology".

If you are not an Elster partisan, what is wrong withyou? ... Read more

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The essays in this volume examine the philosophical foundations of social choice theory, advancing both criticisms and suggestions for alternative approaches. 'The editors and CUP should be thanked for producing a well-made book of stylish and stimulating papers which both define and extend the enquiry which is contemporary social choice theory.' -- Mind 'The volume of essays is enthusiastically recommended to anyone with an interest in social choice theory (SCT) ... Elster and Hylland's introduction and Sen's lengthy epilogue-commentary identify themes and provide a perspective which nicely serves to give the collection an added coherence. Also helpful to the uninitiated is a separate overview by Hylland on the purpose and significance of SCT. It is important to emphasize that a grasp of formal SCT or logic is not necessary for an understanding of any essay.' -- Canadian Philosophical ReviewThe essays in this volume examine the philosophical foundations of social choice theory, advancing both criticisms and suggestions for alternative approaches. 'The editors and CUP should be thanked for producing a well-made book of stylish and stimulating papers which both define and extend the enquiry which is contemporary social choice theory.' -- Mind 'The volume of essays is enthusiastically recommended to anyone with an interest in social choice theory (SCT) ... Elster and Hylland's introduction and Sen's lengthy epilogue-commentary identify themes and provide a perspective which nicely serves to give the collection an added coherence.Also helpful to the uninitiated is a separate overview by Hylland on the purpose and significance of SCT.It is important to emphasize that a grasp of formal SCT or logic is not necessary for an understanding of any essay.' -- Canadian Philosophical Review ... Read more

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A concise and comprehensive introduction to Marx's social, political and economic thought for the beginning student. Jon Elster surveys in turn each of the main themes of marxist thought: methodology, alienation, economics, exploitation, historical materialism, classes, politics, and ideology; in a final chapter he assesses 'what is living and what is dead in the philosophy of Marx'. The emphasis throughout is on the analytical structure of Marx's arguments and the approach is at once sympathetic, undogmatic, and rigorous. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

Elster on Marx
I agree with the reviewer who suggested the title "Elster on Marx" might summarize the contents better than "An Introduction to Karl Marx" if Elster's goal is to introduce Marx to newcomers. But Elster right from the start lays out his point of view (methodological individualism, rational choice theory etc.), and I find no claim to dispassionate objectivity. It has the necessary caveats, and it is an erudite analysis.

Marx is one of history's most fussed-over figures, and I'd prefer to see an introduction to him lay out the data a bit more disinterestedly -- in the first part of the book, anyway -- and in the second part announce, "Now here is where I stand." That is exactly Thomas Sowell's approach in "Marxism: Philosophy and Economics". Plus, between the two authors, Sowell seems to directly quote Marx & Engels twice or three times as much. Now there's novel idea -- Marx on Marx!

If I were making a reading list for a freshman intro course in social science, I'd pick Sowell's book.

Truth in Packaging
An introduction should be just that, an introduction. At the very least, this means that exposition should predominate over commentary. When a work reverses those roles, the result is commentary, not introduction, regardless of title or pretensions to the contrary.This is basic to the genre, and has nothing to do with allegiance on part of writer, reader, or reviewer. The axiom that areader cannot judge intelligently without first understanding what is being judged (in this case Marx) underlies the significance of exposition to an introduction, and speaks to an elementary point that apparently eludes the overzealous reviewer below. Properly understood, Elster's work is commentary, with its own agenda, and scant if any attention to theneeds ofintroduction, let alone a good one. (Notice how Elster's preferredmethodology is given priority of placeand then used to critique what little is presented of Marx's.) I would have no quarrel were the book titled *Elster on Marx* or *Making Sense of Marx*. Nor do I necessarily have a quarrel with those who criticize or revise Marx. But to title a work Introduction and then bury a smattering ofexposition inside a running critique - no matter how worthy or not the commentary - is to do reader and purchaser a disservice. Unfortunately, the book is about Elster, not Marx, and while there are many other introductions that do the job properly, this is not one of them. And, no, Mr. Ver Sluys, this is not about that tiresome chestnut of subservience to Marx - for that, I suggest you check your own effusions on Elster. What it is about is truth in packaging for readers who wish to make up their own minds.

Excellent and worth the dive
Apparently the gentleman below and I have read different books with the same title, because the book I read, "An Introduction to Karl Marx" by Jon Elster, was absolutely nothing like the bookmr. Doepke reviewed.

The book, as far as I can tell with my level of marxian scholarship, is a complete introductoin, and it suffered from none of the failings attributed by it below. Descriptions flowed easily and succintly and I had no trouble understanding them at all. Perhaps this is because I am more of an advanced marx scholar than our other reviewer friend.

But I suspect that the reason mr. Doepke is not happy with this book is because it is a disspasionate consideration of Marxian ideas from a supremely educated man who holds no special religious-kind of attraction to Marx, as so many Marx scholars do.

Let there be no doubt- the disspasionate nature of mr. Elster's analysis of Marx and his contributions is what makes him a rare find. Most all Marx scholars have some kind of agenda in approaching marx, and are colored accordingly (Tom Sowell and Edward Herman, for example).

To his undying credit, Mr. Elster is a leftist who seems to have no agenda in speaking about Marx. Stunningly, he without exception atomizes Marx's main theses and considers them both seperately and as a whole. The result is incisive and dead-on commentary that no other scholar alive has ever even approached, to my knowledge.

What George Orwell did for concretly existing communist governments Jon Elster has done for Marxian theory- a deadly accurate eye methodically slashing through to the real core. I have never found a single scholar that I was not hard pressed to disagree violently with, but Elster manages to leave me without complaint and wondering how I am able to critique the bad points of his books. I am simply unequal to the task of disagreeing with any of Elster's main notions. This is an amazing fact considering we have no ideological common ground. That's how good this man is.

And a last point- unlike most Marx scholars, Elster has a wide range in a vast array of subjects, which makes him interesting to philosophers and economists such as myself in addition to nearly the entire sweep of the social sciences from psychology and sociology on outward.

Buy this book. Elster has no equal.

An introduction to Elster more than Marx
Elster's book serves as a poor introduction to Marx's thought for severalreasons. First, Elster doesn't lay out Marx's specific doctrines in muchdetail, leaving the reader with a mere impression instead of anunderstanding of the theories involved.Much lack of clarity and detailresults from Elster's eagerness to refute specific theories at the sametime he presents them. Moreover his interpretations are consistentlyuncharitable. Combined with little effort at elaborating Marx's theories tomeet the objections, we're left with a pretty partisan result, and one madeparadoxical by Elster's own self-described Marxism.

The impressionthroughout is of superficiality. I suspect much of this superficialityresults from Elster's "methodological individualism" andfashionable reliance on game theory, the current paradigm of rationablebehavior. Small wonder that Elster finds sympathy only in certain Marxianthemes rather than specific results, given Marx's general allegiance toholistic forms of explanation.The book's unsatisfactory nature is almostredeemed by an outstanding chapter on self-realization as Marx's chiefsocial value.The rest of the chapters pale in comparison to this littlegem among the castoffs. ... Read more

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Emotion and addiction lie on a continuum between simple visceral drivessuch as hunger, thirst, and sexual desire at one end and calm, rationaldecision making at the other. Although emotion and addiction involvevisceral motivation, they are also closely linked to cognition andculture. They thus provide the ideal vehicle for Jon Elster''s study ofthe interrelation between three explanatory approaches to behavior:neurobiology, culture, and choice. The book is organized around parallelanalyses of emotion and addiction in order to bring out similarities aswell as differences. Elster''s study sheds fresh light on the generationof human behavior, ultimately revealing how cognition, choice, andrationality are undermined by the physical processes that underliestrong emotions and cravings. This book will be of particular interestto those studying the variety of human motivations who are dissatisfiedwith the prevailing reductionisms.

"Useful and consistently sensible and interesting."

--Simon Blackburn, Times Literary Supplement ... Read more

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Technical change, defined as the manufacture and modification of tools, is generally thought to have played an important role in the evolution of intelligent life on earth, comparable to that of language. In this volume, first published in 1983, Jon Elster approaches the study of technical change from an epistemological perspective. He first sets out the main methods of scientific explanation and then applies those methods to some of the central theories of technical change. In particular, Elster considers neoclassical, evolutionary, and Marxist theories, whilst also devoting a chapter to Joseph Schumpeter's influential theory. ... Read more

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The eleven essays in this volume, supplemented by an editorial introduction, center around three overlapping problems. First, why would a society want to limit its own sovereign power by imposing constitutional constraints on democratic decision-making? Second, what are the contributions of democracy and constitutions to efficient government? Third, what are the relations among democracy, constitutionalism, and private property?This comprehensive discussion of the problems inherent in constitutional democracy will be of interest to students in a variety of social sciences. It illuminates particularly the current efforts of many countries, especially in Latin America, to establish stable democratic regimes. ... Read more

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A systematic, critical examination of Karl Marx's social theories and their philosophical presuppositions. Through extensive discussions of the texts Jon Elster offers a balanced and detailed account of Marx's views that is at once sympathetic, undogmatic and rigorous. Equally importantly he tries to assess 'what is living and what is dead in the philosophy of Marx', using the analytical resources of contemporary social science and philosophy. Professor Elster insists on the need for microfoundations in social science and provides a systematic criticism of functionalism and teleological thinking in Marx. He argues that Marx's economic theories are largely wrong or irrelevant; historical materialism is seen to have only limited plausibility (and is not even consistently applied by Marx); Marx's most lasting achievements are the criticism of capitalism in terms of alienation and exploitation and the theory of class struggle, politics and ideology under capitalism, though in these areas too Elster enters substantial qualifications. The book should take its place as the most comprehensive and sophisticated modern study available. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Not Making Much Sense Of Marx
Elster writes well and clearly and frequently suggests controversial but insightful readings of Marx. That said, there's not of Marx left when he's finished, and I think that is more Elster's fault than Marx's. Elster applies a "methodological" principle called methodological individualism, which he does not explain very well, and which is entirely antithetical to Marx's holistic ("dialectical") manner of analysis.Elster, in the name of wanting to explain the micromechanisms whereby things occur -- alaudable goal and one where Marx often falls down -- insist that social phenomena be explained by reference to individual and their properties individualistically described.It is doubtful that this is coherent, since many of the constitutive properties of individuals -- their class position, to take one example -- are inherently social. In general Elster, in this longish book, almost invariable takes as his target the less plausible and less sympathetic readings of Marx to attack, which makes his job easier but his attempt to make sense of Marx more quetionable.

Analytical Marxism -- the now largly moribund movement of which Elster was a founder -- has a lot to offer the understanding of Marx, but like some its advocates, Elster went overboard in getting rid of too much of Marx that did not fit his preconceptions-- many of which Marx himself criticizes without adequate recognition or response from Elster. Still, the book is important for serious Marx scholars. General readers might start with Elster's shorter version summarizing Elster's main conclusions -- and complement it with a more sympathetic though no less analytical book like Richard Schmitt's Introduction To Marx and Engels. (Schmitt does not think of himself as an Analytical Marxist.)

A far better read than it has any reason to be
Jon Elster has made his name among the best and brightest as one of themost usefull people in the social sciences. This is an excellent thing tobe.

Making Sense of Marx was a beautifully portioned book that is hardto praise adequately. With scholarship five feet thick, Elster displays hisfull range of expertise in this book, bringing into play his vast learningfrom all the social and dismal sciences. Mostly picking apart Marx's maintheories, he deftly displays what I can only call a complete Marxianunderstanding. The truly refreshing part of this book was its approach:Elster spoke using not philosophical or economic language, but the generalsocial sciences language.I was hard pressed to disagree with any of hismain notions, especially his quick and incisive dissections of Marxiannotions of diminishing dynamic efficiency and the theory of history. WhileI am not a strict adherant of rational choice models, he structured therational choice attacks as such to make them accessible to the non-believeras well. All in all, a perfect little book. ... Read more

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In the medical field in general, and in the one of organ transplants in particular, what effect can the institutional agents' perceptions of equity have? "The Ethics of Medical Choice" shows through examples in France, Germany, Norway and the United States, the way in which the issue of equality of access by potential beneficiaries is handled. It emerges from this controversial study that universality of access is still a long way off. ... Read more

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It is sometimes assumed that voting is the central mechanism for political decision making.The contributors to this volume focus on an alternative mechanism, which is decision by discussion or deliberation.This volume is characterized by a realistic approach to the issue of deliberative democracy.Rather than assuming that deliberative democracy is always ideal, the authors critically probe its limits and weaknesses as well as its strengths. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Pericles Redux
If you were designing a political system from scratch, what decision-making procedures would you enshrine to guarantee fair and efficient outcomes? According to Jon Elster, all possible procedures are permutations of three ideal types: arguing, bargaining and voting.

Voting involves the aggregation of individual preferences. The typical example is the referendum by secret ballot. To be democratic, the principle of majority rule must apply. A fine procedure, we might say. But surely it is misplaced optimism to believe that some sort of invisible hand will guide the mass of probably uninformed voters towards mastery of a complex issue.

Bargaining, on the other hand, involves interaction between participants. The isolation and anonymity of the participants is removed, and decisions are arrived at after those that command the weightiest resources ( eg. money, control of the army, authority over demonstrators ) make an agreement in exchange for various concessions.

Arguing similarly involves participant interaction, but appeals are made to impartial reason rather than partisan interest. The deliberations of the jury room are the model for this procedure. If 'voting' has its roots in Rousseau's theory of democracy and 'bargaining' belongs with the liberal democratic tradition of Dahl and Schumpeter, 'arguing' is firmly rooted in the republican tradition. Elster cites Pericles' eulogy of Athens: instead of a stumbling block, discussion is "an indispensable preliminary to any wise action". The idea turns up throughout history: Burke's speech to the electors of Bristol implies a deliberative model of sorts.

Its most recent incarnation was partly a result of Habermas' influential theory of communicative action. Habermas' claim that speech 'does' things ( from Austin's speech-act theory ), and is primarily oriented towards understanding and consensus, was ideally suited to revamping the theory of deliberative democracy. Despite being an heir of Kant and Marx, Habermas does not really get away from the republican mindset inherent in the model. In this sense, the elitist implications of deliberative democracy worry me . . .

Elster's volume fleshes out some of these worries in a reasonably comprehensive way. Susan Stokes' essay 'Pathologies of Deliberation' is well worth reading, as is James Johnson's 'Arguing for Deliberation: Some Skeptical Considerations'. Elster makes the important distinction between deliberation in the making of a constitution and the level of deliberation in the final constitutional document.

Of the remaining essays, Cass Sunstein's 'Health-Health Trade-Offs' is the stand-out, managing to locate the debate in solid empirical examples. Sunstein's conclusion that must find a balance between 'voting' and 'arguing' struck a chord and reminded me of its applicability to the current hot political topic of GM food: how can we balance voter's 'gut feelings' against GM food with a vigorous scientific and public policy debate which is increasingly pointing to its advantages?

Deliberative democracy is not simply abstract theorising. It is very much located in the politics of modern societies. I strongly recommend this book. ... Read more

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This book examines the problems and issues facing formerly communist states as they seek to develop a new democratic political order and a market economy. Studies of Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Hungary and Slovakia provide detailed empirical data concerning constitution making, the shaping of democratic institutions, marketization of the economy, and social policy. This new research is then linked to innovative theoretical material to offer a unique assessment of the difficulties of creating a new political order in the region. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

I knew this book from before
I once read an article from this book and that's why I decided to buy it. ... Read more

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Sour Grapes aims to subvert orthodox theories of rational choice through the study of forms of irrationality. Dr Elster begins with an analysis of the notation of rationality, to provide the background and terms for the subsequent discussions, which cover irrational behaviour, irrational desires and irrational belief. These essays continue and complement the arguments of Jon Elster's earlier book, Ulysses and the Sirens. That was published to wide acclaim, and Dr Elster shows the same versatility here in drawing on philosophy, political and social theory, decision-theory, economics and psychology, as well as history and literature. ... Read more