precommitment irrationality institutional post-communist

books:

Institutional Design in Post-Communist Societies: Rebuilding the Ship at Sea (Theories of Institutional ...
Jon Elster, Claus Offe, ...

Cambridge University Press, 1998

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 ...

Alchemies of the Mind: Rationality and the Emotions

2 reviews
Jon Elster

Cambridge University Press, 1998

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 the different theories of the emotive being in the social scinces cannot be over-emphasized. This book is Elster's best since "Political Psychology". If you are not an Elster partisan, what is wrong with you?

Karl Marx: A Reader

2 reviews

Cambridge University Press, 1986

They complement each other...
In reference to Charles' review, I've read both this book and Ritzer's words on Marx. Charles is definitely correct that Ritzer is easier to understand than the Elster edit, but I think the two complement each other. 19th century German academic translations aren't going to be an easy read, however, what Marx said is essentially here. I wouldn't do as I did and try to read the whole text ...

Getting Hooked: Rationality and Addiction

Cambridge University Press, 2007

The essays in this volume offer the most thorough and up-to-date discussion available of the relationship between addiction and rationality. This is the only book-length treatment of the subject and includes contributions from philosophers, psychiatrists, neurobiologists, sociologists, and economists. The volume offers an up-to-date exposition of the neurophysiology of addiction, a critical examination of the Becker theory of rational addiction, ...

Constitutionalism and Democracy (Studies in Rationality and Social Change)

Cambridge University Press, 1988

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 ...

Closing the Books: Transitional Justice in Historical Perspective
Jon Elster

Cambridge University Press, 2004

After a change of political system, notably a transition from an autocratic to a democratic, or at least constitutional, regime, a process of transitional justice emerges in which wrongdoers from the previous regime are judged responsible and victims are compensated. John Elster looks at examples and proposes a framework for explaining variations. In addition to the numerous transitions after 1945 in Western Europe and after 1989 in Eastern ...

Explaining Social Behavior: More Nuts and Bolts for the Social Sciences

8 reviews
Jon Elster

Cambridge University Press, 2007

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 ...

Ulysses and the Sirens: Studies in Rationality and Irrationality (Cambridge Paperback Library)

Cambridge University Press, 1985

An Introduction to Karl Marx

4 reviews
Jon Elster

Cambridge University Press, 1986

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 book mr. 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 ...

Making Sense of Marx (Studies in Marxism and Social Theory)

2 reviews
Jon Elster

Cambridge University Press, 1985

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 the most usefull people in the social sciences. This is an excellent thing to be. Making Sense of Marx was a beautifully portioned book that is hard to praise adequately. With scholarship five feet thick, Elster displays his full range of expertise in this book, bringing into play his vast learning from all the social and ...

Ulysses Unbound: Studies in Rationality, Precommitment, and Constraints
Jon Elster

Cambridge University Press, 2000

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 ...

Retribution and Reparation in the Transition to Democracy

Cambridge University Press, 2006

The contributions in this study present a comprehensive analysis of transitional justice from 1945 to the present. They feature a general theoretical analysis of the processes of retribution and reparation as well as case studies by historians and political scientists who discuss the West European transitions after 1945 and more recent Latin American, East European, and South African transitions to democracy in the 1980s and 1990s. The ...

Local Justice: How Institutions Allocate Scarce Goods and Necessary Burdens
Jon Elster

Russell Sage Foundation Publications, 1993

Rational Choice (Readings in Social & Political Theory)
Jon Elster

NYU Press, 1986

This series brings together a carefully edited selection of the most influential and enduring articles on central topics in social and political theory. Each volume contains ten to twelve articles and an introductory essay by the editor.

Deliberative Democracy (Cambridge Studies in the Theory of Democracy)

1 review

Cambridge University Press, 1998

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 ...

The Cement of Society: A Survey of Social Order (Studies in Rationality and Social Change)

1 review
Jon Elster

Cambridge University Press, 1989

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 ...

Sour Grapes: Studies in the Subversion of Rationality
Jon Elster

Cambridge University Press, 1985

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 ...

Strong Feelings: Emotion, Addiction, and Human Behavior (Jean Nicod Lectures)
Jon Elster

The MIT Press, 2000

Emotion and addiction lie on a continuum between simple visceral drives such as hunger, thirst, and sexual desire at one end and calm, rational decision making at the other. Although emotion and addiction involve visceral motivation, they are also closely linked to cognition and culture. They thus provide the ideal vehicle for Jon Elster's study of the interrelation between three explanatory approaches to behavior: neurobiology, culture, and ...

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