Rational Choice Perspective

Question 2
Rational Choice perspective is about how individual actors act rationally within a system or social structure in accordance with their preferences. This kind of actor is not limited to be individual person in the society but depends on what kind of setting it is situated. Normally, a group of individuals with collective interest or preference can be perceived as a single actor based on what level of analysis it is. Therefore, each of the parties in a political system is the so called rational actor (Shepsle, 2010, p. 34). Although within the party there are numerous party members and each of them has personal interests and objectives when joined the party, it is doubtless that regarding what policy they want to achieve, they often

29-30). Actors will not be content with what they can attain from the action even it satisfies its preference. Thus, in the policy making arena, parties are always trying to maximise their interests of getting what objective policies they can. However, in reality, with the scarcity of resources and several competitors, actor cannot always get what it wants to achieve. In another words, one cannot take the whole cake from the table because there are other people at the table. However, actors do not necessarily have just one ultimate preference. Normally, there are different alternatives for actors, which they can accept with. Besides, preferences have the features of comparability and transitivity (Shepsle, 2010, p. 24). A preference can be either best option or sub-optimal. Give this situation; interaction with other actors is inevitable. There is negotiation process to let actors compromise with demands from each other and reach an equilibrium goal that everybody content with. It is often the sub-optimal choice of everyone. So the political outcome is usually generated from the equilibrium point with the consensus of most parties or political

Depending on what kind of political setting it is, there are various forms of approach to reach the equilibrium. In the US political system, it is presidential system, two parties and majoritarian electoral system. There are three different actors in the political arena, constitution and two parties. The equilibrium point is within the overlapping parameters of preferences of these three actors. Normally, the slight change of actor’s preference does not pose strong impact on the policy status quo, unless it is drastically moving towards the other part. Two parties system in US as Tsebelis’s proposition says, the increase of distance of the two decision makers along the same line has the positive impact on political stability (Tsebelis, 1995, p. 298), due to the smaller overlapping win set zone. The independent variable is the veto number of veto players and their features. A veto player is an actor that whose agreement is needed to change the policy (Tsebelis, 1995, p. 301). It is the ultimate actor that can object any attempt to change of the policy status quo. In US political system, the special veto player is the president provided by the constitutional power. The president veto power is limited by the constitution, so it stays in the preference zone of constitution. Therefore, although president is