I keep coming across references to “public choice” theory and I haven’t the foggiest notion of what it is. Wikipedia’s article was not very clear. Can someone point me to an online source that would be something like “Public Choice Theory for Dummies” or some such intro?
I found wikipedia clear enough… anyhow, if you follow the external links from there you find pages like :
http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/PublicChoice.html
P**ublic choice applies the theories and methods of economics to the analysis of political behavior, an area that was once the exclusive province of political scientists and sociologists. Public choice originated as a distinctive field of specialization a half century ago in the works of its founding fathers, Kenneth Arrow, Duncan Black, James Buchanan, Gordon Tullock, Anthony Downs, William Niskanen, Mancur Olson, and William Riker. Public choice has revolutionized the study of democratic decision-making processes.
Which seems right to me
Hope it helps
Interesting. The paragraph you quoted might have been right, but it certainly isn’t a clear definition of the term, for someone new to the idea. At any rate, your link did have the following paragraph:
As such, voters “vote their pocketbooks,” supporting candidates and ballot propositions they think will make them personally better off; bureaucrats strive to advance their own careers; and politicians seek election or reelection to office. Public choice, in other words, simply transfers the rational actor model of economic theory to the realm of politics.
I’m not too sure that this is a radically new perspective on politics, but at least now I think that I have a better feel for this theory. Thanks for the reply/link.