Title: Rational Choice Theory and Environmental Policy
Abstract: This chapter aims to investigate the extent to which rational choice theory can help to analyse developments in environmental policy. This is crucial for environmental policy, since rational choice theory has grown from obscurity in the 1950s to a theory that promises (or threatens) to dominate political science in the late 1990s. By 1992 almost 40 per cent of articles in the American Political Science Review were based on rational choice methods (Green and Shapiro 1994: 3). It is therefore highly relevant to take stock of the possibilities for applying rational choice theory to environmental policy. Environmental policy is a key test for the efficacy of the method. Rational choice theory owes many of its origins to economics, so one key question is whether it can deal with a problem that is outside conventional economics. (Henceforth I shall use the abbreviation RCT to denote rational choice theory.)
Publication Year: 2000
Publication Date: 2000-01-01
Language: en
Type: article
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