Jury Aversion and Voter Registration

1999 ◽  
Vol 93 (1) ◽  
pp. 147-152 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. Eric Oliver ◽  
Raymond E. Wolfinger
Keyword(s):  
Multivariate Analysis ◽  
Pilot Study ◽  
Rational Choice Theory ◽  
Choice Theory ◽  
Voter Registration ◽  
The Public ◽  
Percentage Points ◽  
Jury Service ◽  
Jury Duty ◽  
Election Studies

Election officials often say that many Americans do not register to vote for fear of being called to jury duty. The only published study on the topic claims that aversion to jury service depresses turnout by more than seven percentage points. We use questions from the 1991 National Election Studies Pilot Study to ascertain beliefs about the sources of jury lists, and we relate those impressions to registration status. We find that barely half the public professes any knowledge of how juries are chosen, and just 42% believe that they come from voter registration records. Estimations from a multivariate analysis indicate that fear of jury service accounts for less than a one percentage point drop in turnout. We discuss the implications of this finding both for reform proposals and the rational choice theory of turnout.

Guardian Angels

2020 ◽  
pp. 267-292
Author(s):  
Dominic D. P. Johnson
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
Cognitive Biases ◽  
Rational Choice Theory ◽  
Choice Theory ◽  
The United States ◽  
Evolutionary Perspective ◽  
World War ◽  
The Public ◽  
Effective Strategies

This chapter presents a summary of the findings and explores the implications of the new evolutionary perspective on cognitive biases for international relations. It concludes that the cognitive biases are adaptive in a way that strategic instincts help individuals, state leaders, and nations achieve their goals. It also reviews effective strategies that often differ radically from those predicted by conventional paradigms, such as the rational choice theory. The chapter offers novel interpretations of historical events, especially the American Revolution, the British appeasement of Hitler in the 1930s, and the United States' Pacific campaign in World War II. It examines counterintuitive strategies for leaders and policymakers to exploit strategic instincts among themselves, the public, and other states.

Much Obliged: Volunteering, Normative Activities, and Willingness to Serve on Juries

2015 ◽  
Vol 40 (02) ◽  
pp. 433-460 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marc A. Musick ◽  
Mary R. Rose ◽  
Sarah Dury ◽  
Roger P. Rose
Keyword(s):  
Public Service ◽  
Service Work ◽  
Personal Resources ◽  
Voluntary Activity ◽  
The Public ◽  
Willingness To Serve ◽  
Jury Service ◽  
Jury Duty ◽  
Prosocial Attitudes

Although compulsory, many people treat jury duty as voluntary. This article examines the conceptual and empirical links between participating in voluntary activity and stated willingness to serve on a jury. We also consider the role of engaging in other normative behaviors. Analysis of 1,304 US citizens in the Survey of Texas Adults showed an initial relationship between volunteering and willingness to serve, net of personal resources, prior jury service, and prosocial attitudes. However, indicators of normative activities (voting, contacting elected officials, keeping up with medical appointments, and avoiding bars) largely eliminated this relationship. People who volunteered some, but not too much, were more willing; an analysis of domains of volunteering showed that engaging in public service work predicted willingness. Results suggest that the public service and duty‐based nature of jury participation should be emphasized to understand willingness to serve and to consider novel ways to increase summons responses.

Revisiting the role of process incentives as a determinant of university students’ protest

2012 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 225-253
Author(s):  
Elias Dinas ◽  
Kostas Gemenis
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Collective Action ◽  
Rational Choice ◽  
Rational Choice Theory ◽  
Choice Theory ◽  
Choice Model ◽  
Cost Benefit ◽  
Original Data ◽  
Decision Making Process ◽  
The Public

Drawing on the original data collected during a period of university student protest in Greece, we explore whether the expected gains from the act of protesting itself influence an individual's decision to participate in collective action. More particularly, we investigate the extent to which the process incentives qualify the weight individuals attach to the primary elements of the original cost–benefit equation of rational choice theory as well as other considerations in their decision-making process. Our findings point out that the magnitude of the effect of the process incentives is very strong and its inclusion in a rational choice model improves our understanding of students’ participation in protest activities. Turning to indirect effects, we show that process incentives behave as a first stage precondition for the students’ decision to participate in collective action. In the absence of perceived benefits associated with the process of protesting, the importance of attaining the public good becomes much less important in their decision-making process.

Republic Inc.

2020 ◽  
pp. 24-44
Author(s):  
Jason Blakely
Keyword(s):  
Rational Choice Theory ◽  
Choice Theory ◽  
The United States ◽  
Political Life ◽  
Social Solidarity ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Homo Economicus ◽  
Popular Discourse ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Republic

Popular claims to a science of economics have had an enormous impact on reshaping the nature of democracy in Europe and the United States. This chapter uncovers how a popular vision of human beings as egoistic preference maximizers (known to philosophers as homo economicus) played a major role in this transformation. Drawing on the authority and technical sophistication of economic rational choice theory, this popular discourse gave birth to a “market polis” in which all human relations are reimagined as transactional. The result has been the presentation of an egoistic form of citizenship, deficient in social solidarity, as if it were simply a fundamentally scientific view of political life. This has contributed to the move away from earlier notions of the public good (both in the New Deal and the founding of the republic) as well as backsliding toward increasingly authoritarian and antidemocratic forms of politics.

The Rational Choice Approach to Politics: A Challenge to Democratic Theory

1991 ◽  
Vol 53 (2) ◽  
pp. 289-319 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark P. Petracca
Keyword(s):  
Rational Choice ◽  
Human Nature ◽  
Democratic Theory ◽  
Rational Choice Theory ◽  
Choice Theory ◽  
Democratic Citizenship ◽  
Political Life ◽  
Democratic Deliberation ◽  
The Public ◽  
Central Argument

In just three decades rational choice theory has emerged as one of the most active, influential, and ambitious subfields in the discipline of political science. Rational choice theory contends that political behavior is best explained through the application of its supposedly “value-neutral” assumptions which posit man as a self-interested, purposeful, maximizing being. Through the logic of methodological individualism, assumptions about human nature are treated as empirical discoveries. My central argument is that by assuming that self-interest is an empirically established component of human nature, rational choice theory supports and perpetuates a political life which is antithetical to important tenets of normative democratic theory. Rational choice theory offers an incoherent account of democratic citizenship and produces a political system which shows a constant biased against political change and pursuit of the public interest. This article concludes by discussing the merits of democratic deliberation for achieving these transformative ends.

Rational Choice Theory and the 1990 Party Merger in South Korea

OUGHTOPIA ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 35 (2) ◽  
pp. 247-282
Author(s):  
In-Kyun Kim ◽  
Myeong-Geon Koh
Keyword(s):  
South Korea ◽  
Rational Choice ◽  
Rational Choice Theory ◽  
Choice Theory

POLITICS-LAW CONVERGENCE OR DIVERGENCE? 'SMALL' POLITICAL PARTIES, REALPOLITIKAND SOUTH AFRICA'S 20 YEARS OF DEMOCRACY

2015 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Kealeboga J Maphunye
Keyword(s):  
Game Theory ◽  
Political Parties ◽  
Rational Choice ◽  
Significant Role ◽  
Rational Choice Theory ◽  
Choice Theory ◽  
Democratic Consolidation ◽  
Secondary Research ◽  
Extant Literature ◽  
African Charter

This article examines South Africa's 20-year democracy by contextualising the roles of the 'small' political parties that contested South Africa's 2014 elections. Through the  prism  of South  Africa's  Constitution,  electoral legislation  and the African Charter on Democracy, Elections and Governance, it examines these parties' roles in South Africa's democratisation; their influence,  if any, in parliament, and whether they play any role in South Africa's continental or international engagements. Based on a review of the extant literature, official documents,  legislation, media, secondary research, reports and the results of South Africa's elections, the article relies on game theory, rational choice theory and theories of democracy and democratic consolidation to examine 'small' political parties' roles in the country's political and legal systems. It concludes that the roles of 'small' parties in governance and democracy deserve greater recognition than is currently the case, but acknowledges the extreme difficulty experienced by the 'small'  parties in playing a significant role in democratic consolidation, given their formidable opponent in a one-party dominant system.

Nuclear Weapons, South Asia and Morality

Think India ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 22 (3) ◽  
pp. 535-546
Author(s):  
ABHISHEK CHOUDHARY
Keyword(s):  
South Asia ◽  
Nuclear Power ◽  
Rational Choice Theory ◽  
Choice Theory ◽  
Great Powers ◽  
Moral Perspective ◽  
The Us ◽  
Positive Duties ◽  
Nuclear Development ◽  
Asian Context

The paper analyses the concerns arising from a moral perspective in the context of a renewed arms race in South Asia. It challenges the idea that possession of nuclear power could in any way contribute to any sort of balance. The emulation of so-called great powers and expecting that balance would arrive as it did in the case of the US and the erstwhile-USSR during cold war is detrimental to the temporal and spatial uniqueness of South Asia. Deterrence, based on rational choice theory, does not apply to the South Asian context due to ambiguity owing to mutual mistrust especially in the case of India and Pakistan. Also, it no longer only sates that are sole actors in the international arena. One cannot expect the non-state actors to behave in a rational manner. Furthermore, the idea of ‘credible minimum deterrence’ itself is questionable as it is a flexible posture adjusted to relative prowess and ambiguity in policy further aggravates the situation. The paper argues from a consequentialist notion of ethics and argues that the principles of harm and equity ought be part of nuclear decision-making. Another aspect that the paper uncovers relates to the ‘reification’ of nuclear power. Using a neo-Marxist framework and concept of Lukács, the paper argues that it is no longer the state as a repository of power that decides the trajectory of nuclear development. Rather the nuclear technology has started to dictate the way states are looking at regional and international relations. This inverted relationship has been created due to neglect of any ethical toolkit. The paper thus proposes an ethical toolkit that focuses on the negative duties of not to harm and also the positive duties to create conditions that would avoid harm being done to people.

Nowe podejście do harmonizacji technicznej w Unii Europejskiej a swoboda przepływu towarów

2016 ◽  
pp. 70-86
Author(s):  
Iwona Miedzińska
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Consumer Protection ◽  
Rational Choice Theory ◽  
Choice Theory ◽  
Single Market ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Primary Method ◽  
Effective Response ◽  
New Approach ◽  
Free Movement Of Goods

This article is about the new approach directives and their impact on ensuring the free movement of goods in the single market. The author analysed the relevant legislation of the European Union adopted in the field of technical harmonisation: regulations and directives. The primary method of research used in this article is the legal and institutional analysis. Neofunctionalism and rational choice theory were also helpful to explain the processes of integration in this area. The analysis shows that the new approach directives affect the streamlining of procedures for the movement of goods in the single market. However, despite the simplification of procedures for the movement of goods, an adequate level of safety and consumer protection is ensured. The member states and the European Commission have effective response mechanisms when a product endangers life, health or safety of consumers.

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