Statistical political philosphy and positive political theory

Abstract

Green and Shapiro's tour de force fails as a convincing critique of rational choice applications in political science because it locks itself into a statistical form of assessment. Rather than seeing the constructive side of rational choice theory, both as an engine of theoretical development and as a source of non‐obvious empirical insights about politics, Green and Shapiro depart from the procedure in most sciences, comparing rational choice against an ideal rather than some concrete alternative. Finally, they fail to note the recent emphasis on sophisticated empirical testing of rational choice hypotheses.