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| ulysses and the sirens jon elster: Sour Grapes Jon Elster, 1983 Dr Elster analyses the notation of rationality through the study of irrational behaviour, desires and belief. |
| ulysses and the sirens jon elster: Ulysses and the Sirens Jon Elster, 1979-05-03 This book was first published in 1984, as the revised edition of a 1979 original. The text is composed of studies in a descending sequence from perfect rationality, through imperfect and problematical rationality, to irrationality. Specifically human rationality is characterized by its capacity to relate strategically to the future, in contrast to the myopic 'gradient climbing' of natural selection. There is trenchant analysis of some of the parallels proposed in this connection between the biological and the social sciences. In the chapter on imperfect rationality the crucial notion is that of 'binding oneself', as Ulysses did before setting out to the Sirens, when weakness of will may prevent us from using our capacity for perfect rationality. The second half of the book deals with rational-actor theory, comparing its logical power and success to rival approaches, and with the varieties of irrationality expressed in contradictory beliefs and desires. |
| ulysses and the sirens jon elster: Reason and Rationality Jon Elster, 2009-01-18 One of the world's most important political philosophers, Jon Elster is a leading thinker on reason and rationality and their roles in politics and public life. In this short book, he crystallizes and advances his work, bridging the gap between philosophers who use the idea of reason to assess human behavior from a normative point of view and social scientists who use the idea of rationality to explain behavior. In place of these approaches, Elster proposes a unified conceptual framework for the study of behavior. Drawing on classical moralists as well as modern scholarship, and using a wealth of historical and contemporary illustrations, Reason and Rationality marks a new development in Elster's thinking while at the same time providing a brief, elegant, and accessible introduction to his work. |
| ulysses and the sirens jon elster: Solomonic Judgements Jon Elster, 1989-07-28 A collection of essays on rationality - its scope, its limitations and its failures. |
| ulysses and the sirens jon elster: Closing the Books Jon Elster, 2004-09-06 An analysis of transitional justice - retribution and reparation after a change of political regime - from Athens in the fifth century BC to the present. Part I, 'The Universe of Transitional Justice', describes more than thirty transitions, some of them in considerable detail, others more succinctly. Part II, 'The Analytics of Transitional Justice', proposes a framework for explaining the variations among the cases - why after some transitions wrongdoers from the previous regime are punished severely and in other cases mildly or not at all, and victims sometimes compensated generously and sometimes poorly or not at all. After surveying a broad range of justifications and excuses for wrongdoings and criteria for selecting and indemnifying victims, the 2004 book concludes with a discussion of three general explanatory factors: economic and political constraints, the retributive emotions, and the play of party politics. |
| ulysses and the sirens jon elster: Retribution and Reparation in the Transition to Democracy Jon Elster, 2006-05-08 The contributions in this volume offer a comprehensive analysis of transitional justice from 1945 to the present. They focus on retribution against the leaders and agents of the autocratic regime preceding the democratic transition, and on reparation to its victims. Part I contains general theoretical discussions of retribution and reparation. The essays in Part II survey transitional justice in the wake of World War II, covering Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Hungary, the Netherlands, and Norway. In Part III, the contributors discuss more recent transitions in Argentina, Chile, Eastern Europe, the former German Democratic Republic, and South Africa, including a chapter on the reparation of injustice in some of these transitions. The editor provides a general introduction, brief introductions to each part, and a conclusion that looks beyond regime transitions to broader issues of rectifying historical injustice. |
| ulysses and the sirens jon elster: Intellectual Trust in Oneself and Others Richard Foley, 2001-08-13 To what degree should we rely on our own resources and methods to form opinions about important matters? To what degree should we depend on various authorities, such as a recognized expert or a social tradition? In this provocative account of intellectual trust and authority, Richard Foley argues that it can be reasonable to have intellectual trust in oneself even though it is not possible to provide a defence of the reliability of one's faculties, methods and opinions that does not beg the question. Moreover, he shows how this account of intellectual self-trust can be used to understand the degree to which it is reasonable to rely on alternative authorities. This book will be of interest to advanced students and professionals working in the fields of philosophy and the social sciences as well as anyone looking for a unified account of the issues at the centre of intellectual trust. |
| ulysses and the sirens jon elster: France Before 1789 Jon Elster, 2022-12-13 France before 1789 presents the main features of the prodigiously complex social system of the ancien regime which proceeded the French Revolution. In doing so Jon Elster goes beyond formal institutions to show how they worked in practice. He draws on a host of examples and contemporary texts to illuminate the perverse and sometimes pathological effects of this system and seeks to provide a detailed analysis of the political institutions that undergirded it. Whereas Tocqueville, in his famous analysis of the ancient regime, wanted to understand the old regime as a prelude to revolution, Elster views it as a prelude to constitution-making prompted by and intended to resolve these perversities. He views these as overlapping, yet important enough to render distinct. In addition to defending a particular set of substantive propositions about the conditions which led to the Constituent Assembly, Elster argues for a specific methodological approach to history, which emphasizes supplementing the historian's craft with approaches from the social sciences. Ultimately, he does not claim to answer the historians' questions better than they do. But he does aspire to ask and sometimes answer questions that historians have not formulated in order to better understand one of the most significant examples of collective decision-making history offers us-- |
| ulysses and the sirens jon elster: Explaining Social Behavior Jon Elster, 2015-07-30 A substantially revised edition of Jon Elster's critically acclaimed book exploring the nature of social behavior and the social sciences. |
| ulysses and the sirens jon elster: Getting Hooked Jon Elster, Ole-Jørgen Skog, 1999-03-13 The essays in this volume offer a thorough discussion of the relationship between addiction and rationality. This book-length treatment of the subject includes contributions from philosophers, psychiatrists, neurobiologists, sociologists and economists. Contrary to the widespread view that addicts are subject to overpowering and compulsive urges, the authors in this volume demonstrate that addicts are capable of making choices and responding to incentives. At the same time they disagree with Gary Becker's argument that addiction is the result of rational choice. The volume offers an exposition of the neurophysiology of addiction, a critical examination of the Becker theory of rational addiction, an argument for a 'visceral theory of addiction', a discussion of compulsive gambling as a form of addiction, several discussions of George Ainslie's theory of hyperbolic discounting, analyses of social causes and policy implications, and an investigation of the problem of relapse. |
| ulysses and the sirens jon elster: Local Justice Jon Elster, 1992-05-14 The well-being of individuals routinely depends on their success in obtaining goods and avoiding burdens distributed by society. Local Justice offers the first systematic analysis of the principles and procedures used in dispensing local justice in situations as varied as the admission of students to college, the choice of patients for organ transplants, the selection of workers for layoffs, and the induction of men into the army. A prominent theorist in the field of rational choice and decision making, Jon Elster develops a rich selection of empirical examples and case studies to demonstrate the diversity of procedures used by institutions that mete out local justice. From this revealing material Elster fashions a conceptual framework for understanding why institutions make these crucial allocations in the ways they do. Elster's investigation discloses the many complex and varied approaches of such decision-making bodies as selective service and adoption agencies, employers and universities, prison and immigration authorities. What are the conflicting demands placed on these institutions by the needs of applicants, the recommendations of external agencies, and their own organizational imperatives? Often, as Elster shows, methods of allocation may actually aggravate social problems. For instance, the likelihood that handicapped or minority infants will be adopted is further decreased when agencies apply the same stringent screening criteria—exclusion of people over forty, single parents, working wives, and low-income families—that they use for more sought-after babies. Elster proposes a classification of the main principles and procedures used to match goods with individuals, charts the interactions among these mechanisms of local justice, and evaluates them in terms of fairness and efficiency. From his empirical groundwork, Elster builds an innovative analysis of the historical processes by which, at given times and under given circumstances, preferences become principles and principles become procedures. Local Justice concludes with a comparison of local justice systems with major contemporary theories of social justice—utilitarianism, John Rawls's A Theory of Justice, Robert Nozick's Anarchy, State, and Utopia—and discusses the common-sense conception of justice held by professional decision makers such as lawyers, economists, and politicians. The difference between what we say about justice and how we actually dispense it is the illuminating principle behind Elster's book. A perceptive and cosmopolitan study, Local Justice is a seminal work for all those concerned with the formation of ethical policy and social welfare—philosophers, economists, political scientists, health care professionals, policy makers, and educators. |
| ulysses and the sirens jon elster: Social Mechanisms Peter Hedström, Richard Swedberg, 1998-01-13 The advancement of social theory requires an analytical approach that systematically seeks to explicate the social mechanisms that generate and explain observed associations between events. These essays, written by prominent social scientists, advance criticisms of current trends in social theory and suggest alternative approaches. The mechanism approach calls attention to an intermediary level of analysis in between pure description and story-telling, on the one hand, and grand theorizing and universal social laws, on the other. For social theory to be of use for the working social scientist, it must attain a high level of precision and provide a toolbox from which middle range theories can be constructed. |
| ulysses and the sirens jon elster: Games C. Thi Nguyen, 2025-02 Games are a unique art form. Games work in the medium of agency. Game designers tell us who to be and what to care about during the game. Game designers sculpt alternate agencies, and game players submerge themselves in those alternate agencies. Thus, the fact that we play games demonstrates the fluidity of our own agency. We can throw ourselves, for a little while, into a different and temporary motivations. This volume presents a new theory of games which insists on their unique value. C. Thi Nguyen argues that games are an integral part our systems of communication and our art. Games sculpt our practical activities, allowing us to experience the beauty of our own actions and reasoning. Bridging aesthetics and practical reasoning, he gives an account of the special motivational structure involved in playing games. When we play games, we can pursue a goal, not for its own value, but for the value of the struggle. Thus, playing games involves a motivational inversion from normal life. We adopt an interest in winning temporarily, so we can experience the beauty of the struggle. Games offer us a temporary experience of life under utterly clear values, in a world engineered to fit to our abilities and goals. Games also let us to experience forms of agency we might never have developed on our own. Games, it turns out, are a special technique for communication. They are a technology that lets us record and transmit forms of agency. Our games form a library of agency and we can explore that library to develop our autonomy. Games use temporary restrictions to force us into new postures of agency. |
| ulysses and the sirens jon elster: Constitutionalism and Democracy Jon Elster, Rune Slagstad, 1988 The eleven essays in this volume, supplemented by an editorial introduction, centre 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 comprehensive discussion of the problems inherent in constitutional democracy will be of interest to students in a variety of social sciences. It illuminates particularly the current efforts of many countries, especially in Latin America, to establish stable democratic regimes. |
| ulysses and the sirens jon elster: The Moral Limits of the Criminal Law: Harm to self Joel Feinberg, 1986 N this volume, Feinberg focuses on the meanings of interest, the relationship between interests and wants, and the distinction between want-regarding and ideal-regarding analyses on interest and hard cases for the applications of the concept of harm. Examples of the hard cases are harm to character, vicarious harm, and prenatal and posthumous harm. Feinberg also discusses the relationship between harm and rights, the concept of a victim, and the distinctions of various quantitative dimensions of harm, consent, and offense, including the magnitude, probability, risk, and importance of harm. |
| ulysses and the sirens jon elster: Morals by Agreement David Gauthier, 1986 In this book the author argues that moral principles are principles of rational choice. According to the usual view of choice, a rational person selects what is likely to give the greatest expectation of value or utility. But in many situations, if each person chooses in this way, everyone will be worse off than need be. Instead, Professor Gauthier proposes a principle whereby choice is made on an agreed basis of co-operation, rather than according to what would give the individual the greatest expectation of value. He shows that such a principle not only ensures mutual benefit and fairness, thus satisfying the standards of morality, but also that each person may actually expect greater utility by adhering to morality, even though the choice did not have that end primarily in view. In resolving what may appear to be a paradox, the author establishes morals on the firm foundation of reason. |
| ulysses and the sirens jon elster: Making Sense of Marx Jon Elster, 1985-05-09 A critical examination of the social theories of Karl Marx. |
| ulysses and the sirens jon elster: Securities Against Misrule Jon Elster, 2013-04-22 It is often argued that democratic institutions should be designed to produce good outcomes, assuming that we know what good outcomes are and which institutions will track them. This book denies both assumptions. The idea of the general interest is ill-defined and our understanding of social causality is fragile. Instead, one should reduce as much as possible the impact of self-interest, passion, prejudice, and bias on the decision makers, and then let the chips fall where they may. In addition to making novel theoretical proposals, this book discusses a welter of case studies and historical episodes. |
| ulysses and the sirens jon elster: Choosing Not to Choose Cass R. Sunstein, 2015 Cass R. Sunstein is at the forefront of developing public policy to encourage people to make better decisions. In Choosing Not to Choose he presents his most complete argument for how we should understand the value of choice, and when and how we should enable people to choose not to choose. Confronting the challenging future of data-driven decision-making, Sunstein presents a manifesto for how personalized defaults should be used to enhance our freedom and well-being. |
| ulysses and the sirens jon elster: Logic and Society Jon Elster, 1978 |
| ulysses and the sirens jon elster: Making Sense of Taste Carolyn Korsmeyer, 2014-01-04 Taste, perhaps the most intimate of the five senses, has traditionally been considered beneath the concern of philosophy, too bound to the body, too personal and idiosyncratic. Yet, in addition to providing physical pleasure, eating and drinking bear symbolic and aesthetic value in human experience, and they continually inspire writers and artists. Carolyn Korsmeyer explains how taste came to occupy so low a place in the hierarchy of senses and why it is deserving of greater philosophical respect and attention. Korsmeyer begins with the Greek thinkers who classified taste as an inferior, bodily sense; she then traces the parallels between notions of aesthetic and gustatory taste that were explored in the formation of modern aesthetic theories. She presents scientific views of how taste actually works and identifies multiple components of taste experiences. Turning to taste's objects—food and drink—she looks at the different meanings they convey in art and literature as well as in ordinary human life and proposes an approach to the aesthetic value of taste that recognizes the representational and expressive roles of food. Korsmeyer's consideration of art encompasses works that employ food in contexts sacred and profane, that seek to whet the appetite and to keep it at bay; her selection of literary vignettes ranges from narratives of macabre devouring to stories of communities forged by shared eating. |
| ulysses and the sirens jon elster: The Mystery of Courage William Ian Miller, 2002-04-30 Miller culls sources as varied as soldiers’ memoirs, heroic and romantic literature, and philosophical discussions to get to the heart of courage—and to expose its role in generating the central anxieties of masculinity and manhood. |
| ulysses and the sirens jon elster: Strategies of Commitment and Other Essays Thomas C. Schelling, 2006-02-28 Schelling--a 2005 Nobel Prize winner-- has been one of the four or five most important social scientists of the past fifty years, and this collection shows why. These essays convey his unique perspective on individuals and society. This perspective has several characteristics: it is strategic in that it assumes that an important part of people's behavior is motivated by the thought of influencing other people's expectations; it views the mind as being separable into two or more parts (rational/irrational; present-minded/future-minded); it is motivated by policy concerns--smoking and other addictions, global warming, segregation, nuclear war; and while it accepts many of the basic assumptions of economics--that people are forward-looking, rational decision makers, that resources are scarce, and that incentives are important--it is open to modifying them when appropriate, and open to the findings and insights of other social science disciplines.--From publisher description. |
| ulysses and the sirens jon elster: The Anatomy of Disgust William Ian MILLER, William Ian Miller, 2009-06-30 William Miller embarks on an alluring journey into the world of disgust, showing how it brings order and meaning to our lives even as it horrifies and revolts us. Our notion of the self, intimately dependent as it is on our response to the excretions and secretions of our bodies, depends on it. Cultural identities have frequent recourse to its boundary-policing powers. Love depends on overcoming it, while the pleasure of sex comes in large measure from the titillating violation of disgust prohibitions. Imagine aesthetics without disgust for tastelessness and vulgarity; imagine morality without disgust for evil, hypocrisy, stupidity, and cruelty. Miller details our anxious relation to basic life processes: eating, excreting, fornicating, decaying, and dying. But disgust pushes beyond the flesh to vivify the larger social order with the idiom it commandeers from the sights, smells, tastes, feels, and sounds of fleshly physicality. Disgust and contempt, Miller argues, play crucial political roles in creating and maintaining social hierarchy. Democracy depends less on respect for persons than on an equal distribution of contempt. Disgust, however, signals dangerous division. The high's belief that the low actually smell bad, or are sources of pollution, seriously threatens democracy. Miller argues that disgust is deeply grounded in our ambivalence to life: it distresses us that the fair is so fragile, so easily reduced to foulness, and that the foul may seem more than passing fair in certain slants of light. When we are disgusted, we are attempting to set bounds, to keep chaos at bay. Of course we fail. But, as Miller points out, our failure is hardly an occasion for despair, for disgust also helps to animate the world, and to make it a dangerous, magical, and exciting place. |
| ulysses and the sirens jon elster: Work on Myth Hans Blumenberg, 1988-03-18 In this rich examination of how we inherit and transform myths, Hans Blumenberg continues his study of the philosophical roots of the modern world. Work on Myth is in five parts. The first two analyze the characteristics of myth and the stages in the West's work on myth, including long discussions of such authors as Freud, Joyce, Cassirer, and Valéry. The latter three parts present a comprehensive account of the history of the Prometheus myth, from Hesiod and Aeschylus to Gide and Kafka. This section includes a detailed analysis of Goethe's lifelong confrontation with the Prometheus myth, which is a unique synthesis of psychobiography and history of ideas. Work on Myth is included in the series Studies in Contemporary German Social Thought, edited by Thomas McCarthy. |
| ulysses and the sirens jon elster: An Introduction to Karl Marx Jon Elster, 1986-07-25 A critical introduction to Marx's social, political and economic thought that stresses the relevance and importance of many of the philosopher's theories. It can be considered a standard basic reference work for the study of Marx in conjunction with the author's companion selection of Marx's writings, Karl Marx: A Reader. |
| ulysses and the sirens jon elster: Passions and Constraint Stephen Holmes, 1995-06 Holmes argues that the aspirations of liberal democracy - including individual liberty, the equal dignity of citizens, and a tolerance for diversity - are best understood in relation to two central themes of classical liberal theory: the psychological motivations of individuals and the necessary constraints on individual passions provided by robust institutions. Paradoxically, Holmes argues, such institutional restraints serve to enable, rather than limit or dilute, effective democracy. |
| ulysses and the sirens jon elster: Analytical Sociology and Social Mechanisms Pierre Demeulenaere, 2011-03-24 Mechanisms are very much a part of social life. For example, we can see that inequality has tended to increase over time, and that cities can become segregated. But how do such mechanisms work? Analytical sociology is an influential approach to sociology which holds that explanations of social phenomena should focus on the social mechanisms that bring them about. This book evaluates the major features of this approach, focusing on the significance of the notion of mechanism. Leading scholars seek to answer a number of questions in order to explore all the relevant dimensions of mechanism-based explanations in social sciences. How do social mechanisms link together individual actions and social environments? What is the role of multi-agent modelling in the conceptualization of mechanisms? Does the notion of mechanism solve the problem of relevance in social sciences explanations? |
| ulysses and the sirens jon elster: Alexis de Tocqueville, the First Social Scientist Jon Elster, 2009-04-27 The book proposes a new interpretation of Alexis de Tocqueville that views him first and foremost as a social scientist rather than as a political theorist. Drawing on his earlier work on the explanation of social behavior, Elster argues that Tocqueville's main claim to our attention today rests on the large number of exportable causal mechanisms to be found in his work, many of which are still worthy of further exploration. Elster proposes a novel reading of Democracy in America in which the key explanatory variable is the rapid economic and political turnover rather than equality of wealth at any given point in time. He also offers a reading of The Ancien Régime and the Revolution as grounded in the psychological relations among the peasantry, the bourgeoisie, and the nobility. Consistently going beyond exegetical commentary, he argues that Tocqueville is eminently worth reading today for his substantive and methodological insights. |
| ulysses and the sirens jon elster: Arguing about Justice Yannick Vanderborght, 2011-10-27 Fifty of today's finest thinkers were asked to let their imaginations run free to advance new ideas on a wide range of social and political issues. They did so as friends, on the occasion of Philippe Van Parijs's sixtieth birthday. |
| ulysses and the sirens jon elster: The State of the Nation John A. Hall, 1998-11-26 An exceptional set of scholars assess every aspect of the most influential theory of nationalism. |
| ulysses and the sirens jon elster: Rational Commitment and Social Justice Jules L. Coleman, Christopher W. Morris, Gregory S. Kavka, 1998-11-13 Essays concerned with fundamental issues of rational commitment and social justice to which Kavka devoted his work as a philosopher. |
| ulysses and the sirens jon elster: The New International Law Christoffer C. Eriksen, Marius Emberland, 2010-10-25 This volume contains revised versions of a select number of research papers presented at a conference in Oslo, Norway, entitled “The New International Law”. The conference was subtitled “Polycentric Decision-making Structures and Fragmented Spheres of Law: What Implications for the New Generation of International Legal Discourse?” This subtitle signals the most important elements of the conference’s main purpose which was to be a project in line with certain strands of contemporary scholarship on international law; scholarship that bases itself on certain assumptions regarding what are important and changing preconditions for the field of international law research. Such assumptions include the transformation of sovereignty, the horizontal and vertical dispersal of governmental authority, the incompleteness of municipal law for legal regulation of individuals and private entities, states’ acceptance of treaty regimes whereby international authorities exercise regulatory power that interferes with domestic authority, and the proliferation of new dispute-settling bodies on the international plane. The volume aims to display the diversity within the new generation of international legal scholarship and to bring the analyses and arguments of this research to a wider audience. Topics addressed include environmental regulation, human rights and humanitarian protection, criminal law, and international security and development. |
| ulysses and the sirens jon elster: Cultural Theory Michael Thompson, 2018-06-27 Why do people want what they want? Why does one person see the world as a place to control, while another feels controlled by the world? A useful theory of culture, the authors contend, should start with these questions, and the answers, given different historical conditions, should apply equally well to people of all times, places, and walks of life.Taking their cue from the pioneering work of anthropologist Mary Douglas, the authors of Cultural Theory have created a typology of five ways of life?egalitarianism, fatalism, individualism, hierarchy, and autonomy?to serve as an analytic tool in examining people, culture, and politics. They then show how cultural theorists can develop large numbers of falsifiable propositions.Drawing on parables, poetry, case studies, fiction, and the Great Books, the authors illustrate how cultural biases and social relationships interact in particular ways to yield life patterns that are viable, sustainable, and ultimately, changeable under certain conditions. Figures throughout the book show the dynamic quality of these ways of life and specifically illustrate the role of surprise in effecting small- and large-scale change.The authors compare Cultural Theory with the thought of master social theorists from Montesquieu to Stinchcombe and then reanalyze the classic works in the political culture tradition from Almond and Verba to Pye. Demonstrating that there is more to social life than hierarchy and individualism, the authors offer evidence from earlier studies showing that the addition of egalitarianism and fatalism facilitates cross-national comparisons. |
| ulysses and the sirens jon elster: Essays and Reviews Bernard Williams, 2015-10-13 The first collection of popular reviews and essays from distinguished philosopher Bernard Williams Bernard Williams was one of the most important philosophers of the past fifty years, but he was also a distinguished critic and essayist with an elegant style and a rare ability to communicate complex ideas to a wide public. This is the first collection of Williams's popular essays and reviews. Williams writes about a broad range of subjects, from philosophy to science, the humanities, economics, feminism, and pornography. Included are reviews of major books such as John Rawls’s Theory of Justice, Richard Rorty’s Consequences of Pragmatism, and Martha Nussbaum’s Therapy of Desire. But many of these essays extend beyond philosophy, providing an intellectual tour through the past half century, from C. S. Lewis to Noam Chomsky. No matter the subject, readers see a first-class mind grappling with landmark books in real time, before critical consensus had formed and ossified. |
| ulysses and the sirens jon elster: Law, Economics, and Morality Eyal Zamir, Barak Medina, 2010 This work examines the possibility of combining economic methodology and deontological morality through explicit and direct incorporation of moral constraints into economic models. |
| ulysses and the sirens jon elster: Routledge Library Editions: World Empires Various, 2021-07-09 The 16 volumes in this set, originally published between 1919 and 1998, draw together research by leading academics in the area of World Empires and provide an examination of related key issues. The books examine French Colonialism, the German Empire, and the Ottoman Empire, as well as the effect European colonialism had in Africa and Asia. This set will be of particular interest to students of world history. |
| ulysses and the sirens jon elster: The Baltic States and the End of the Soviet Empire Kristian Gerner, Stefan Hedlund, 2018-05-01 First published in 1993. How is it possible for the three tiny Baltic republics to gain their freedom from the Soviet Union, without a single shot being fired or a single stone thrown at the oppressor? The topic of this book is the implosion of the Soviet empire. It tells the parallel stories of how the three Baltic republics of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania struggled successfully to gain their freedom, and how the policies pursued by Mikhail Gorbachev served to mobilize and politicize Baltic demands. Particular emphasis is placed on unintended consequences that resulted from repeated interventions by Moscow. The authors develop a loose theoretic framework for the examination of this critical struggle. The study starts by developing the analytical tools and then proceeds to outline, as background, the most salient features of Gorbachev's reform programme and of the history of the Baltic States. The core of the analysis is then presented in three chapters, devoted to three consecutive stages in the game. The first shows how strategies on both sides were initially formulated in consensus. In the second it is shown how consensus transformed into pure conflict, and in the third all actors are seeking to escape general collapse. The main conclusion points at the absence of ‘politics’ in the Soviet System as a main cause of its self-destruction. |
| ulysses and the sirens jon elster: Radicals, Reformers, and Reactionaries Youssef Cohen, 1994-10-17 Latin American democracies of the sixties and seventies, most theories hold, collapsed because they had become incompatible with the structural requirements of capitalist development. In this groundbreaking application of game theory to political phenomena, Youssef Cohen argues that structural conditions in Latin American countries did not necessarily preclude the implementation of social and economic reforms within a democratic framework. Focusing on the experiences of Chile and Brazil, Cohen argues that what thwarted democratic reforms in Latin America was a classic case of prisoner's dilemma. Moderates on the left and the right knew the benefits of coming to a mutual agreement on socio-economic reforms. Yet each feared that, if it cooperated, the other side could gain by colluding with the radicals. Unwilling to take this risk, moderate groups in both countries splintered and joined the extremists. The resulting disorder opened the way for military control. Cohen further argues that, in general, structural explanations of political phenomena are inherently flawed; they incorrectly assume that beliefs, preferences, and actions are caused by social, political, and economic structures. One cannot explain political outcomes, Cohen argues, without treating beliefs and preferences as partly independent from structures, and as having a causal force in their own right. |
Ulysses (novel) - Wikipedia
Ulysses is a modernist novel by the Irish writer James Joyce. Partially serialised in the American journal The Little Review from March 1918 to December 1920, the entire work was published …
Ulysses | Book, Summary, Analysis, Characters, & Facts | Britannica
5 days ago · Ulysses is a novel by Irish writer James Joyce, first published in book form in 1922. The stylistically dense and exhilarating novel is regarded as a masterpiece and is constructed …
Ulysses by James Joyce | Project Gutenberg
Jul 1, 2003 · "Ulysses" by James Joyce is a modernist novel written in the early 20th century. This influential work takes place in Dublin and chronicles the experiences of its central characters, …
Ulysses by James Joyce Plot Summary - LitCharts
James Joyce’s famously dense and unconventional modernist novel Ulysses follows the advertiser Leopold Bloom as he goes about his day in Dublin, Ireland on June 16, 1904. …
Ulysses by James Joyce - Goodreads
Ulysses chronicles the peripatetic appointments and encounters of Leopold Bloom in Dublin in the course of an ordinary day, 16 June 1904. Ulysses is the Latinised name of Odysseus, the hero …
Ulysses: Full Book Summary - SparkNotes
A short summary of James Joyce's Ulysses. This free synopsis covers all the crucial plot points of Ulysses.
UlyssesGuide.com
A guide for readers of James Joyce's novel Ulysses, including background info, individual episode guides, photographs, maps, and other helpful resources.
Ulysses Summary | SuperSummary
Ulysses is a 1922 novel by Irish author James Joyce. The story is a loose adaptation of Homer’s epic poem The Odyssey, portraying a day in the lives of several characters who live in Dublin, …
Ulysses Summary - GradeSaver
Ulysses study guide contains a biography of James Joyce, literature essays, a complete e-text, quiz questions, major themes, characters, and a full summary and analysis. Best summary …
Yes I Will Read ‘Ulysses’ Yes - The Atlantic
1 day ago · When Richard Ellmann’s James Joyce hit the shelves in 1959, the sheer size of the book (842 pages, 100 longer than Ulysses ) was as dazzling as the degree of detail. Joyce, …
Ulysses (novel) - Wikipedia
Ulysses is a modernist novel by the Irish writer James Joyce. Partially serialised in the American journal The Little Review from March 1918 to December 1920, the entire work was published …
Ulysses | Book, Summary, Analysis, Characters, & Facts | Britannica
5 days ago · Ulysses is a novel by Irish writer James Joyce, first published in book form in 1922. The stylistically dense and exhilarating novel is regarded as a masterpiece and is constructed …
Ulysses by James Joyce | Project Gutenberg
Jul 1, 2003 · "Ulysses" by James Joyce is a modernist novel written in the early 20th century. This influential work takes place in Dublin and chronicles the experiences of its central characters, …
Ulysses by James Joyce Plot Summary - LitCharts
James Joyce’s famously dense and unconventional modernist novel Ulysses follows the advertiser Leopold Bloom as he goes about his day in Dublin, Ireland on June 16, 1904. …
Ulysses by James Joyce - Goodreads
Ulysses chronicles the peripatetic appointments and encounters of Leopold Bloom in Dublin in the course of an ordinary day, 16 June 1904. Ulysses is the Latinised name of Odysseus, the hero …
Ulysses: Full Book Summary - SparkNotes
A short summary of James Joyce's Ulysses. This free synopsis covers all the crucial plot points of Ulysses.
UlyssesGuide.com
A guide for readers of James Joyce's novel Ulysses, including background info, individual episode guides, photographs, maps, and other helpful resources.
Ulysses Summary | SuperSummary
Ulysses is a 1922 novel by Irish author James Joyce. The story is a loose adaptation of Homer’s epic poem The Odyssey, portraying a day in the lives of several characters who live in Dublin, …
Ulysses Summary - GradeSaver
Ulysses study guide contains a biography of James Joyce, literature essays, a complete e-text, quiz questions, major themes, characters, and a full summary and analysis. Best summary …
Yes I Will Read ‘Ulysses’ Yes - The Atlantic
1 day ago · When Richard Ellmann’s James Joyce hit the shelves in 1959, the sheer size of the book (842 pages, 100 longer than Ulysses ) was as dazzling as the degree of detail. Joyce, …
