Rational Choice Institutionalism
This school attempts to explain collective choices by rational actors. Outcomes are a product of the interaction between actor preferences and institutional rules.
Rational institutionalists also regard institutions as themselves being rationally chosen by actors who view the rules as facilitating the pursuit of their goals. For example, the institutional decision-making rules of the European Union are such that the largest states can structure political outcomes.
Read more about this topic: Institutionalism In International Relations
Famous quotes containing the words rational and/or choice:
“After I went to bed I had a curious fancy as to dreams. In sleep the doors of the mind are shut, and thoughts come jumping in at the windows. They tumble headlong, and therefore are so disorderly and strange. Sometimes they are stout and light on their feet, and then they are rational dreams.”
—James Boswell (1740–1795)
“The majority of persons choose their wives with as little prudence as they eat. They see a trull with nothing else to recommend her but a pair of thighs and choice hunkers, and so smart to void their seed that they marry her at once. They imagine they can live in marvelous contentment with handsome feet and ambrosial buttocks. Most men are accredited fools shortly after they leave the womb.”
—Edward Dahlberg (1900–1977)