From equilibrium to chaos and back : methodological evaluation of research of the majority rule

According to the canonical model situated at the heart of the " economic " - or, as the political scientists prefer to call it, rational-choice - theory of (democratic) politics, whenever the matter to be decided raises, or consists of, at least two distinct issues, it is generally impossible to reach a determinate decision by using the majority rule. This problem, referred to as that of disequilibrium, equilibrium instability, or even"chaos", was first underplayed and then deemed ominous to the point of seriously undermining the development prospects of the whole theory. However, more recently, the concern it was the source o f until the 1980s has given way to a state of renewed confidence…

Méthodologie économique

L'actualité du traditionalisme en méthodologie

Acquiescence to opacity

Opacity may affect both the means used to implement policies and the real objectives that they pursue. Our concern with opacity is limited to the cases when it is the result of obfuscation. that is, of some effort on the part of governments or other public bodies (central banks or international organisations) to hide or misrepresent their choices. In the literature concerned with accounting for inefficient policies, there are now models in which opacity plays no significant role. This chapter provides a number of mechanisms that account for or lead to the phenomenon the authors are interested in, that is, voters preferring a policy to be opaque rather than transparent. It then discusses two…

La méthodologie de l'Economie Théorique et Appliquée aujourd'hui, ouvrage édité sous la direction de J. WOLFF avec P. SALMON, B. WALLISER, A. WOLFELSPERGER, Actes du Colloque de l'AFSE, Nathan, Paris, 1990, 192 pages.

International audience