week1_Kelemtrans_Pengantar

• Assumptions:
Rational choice approach
– actors have a fixed set of preferences or tastes
– actors as as utillity maximizers: they behave entirely instrumentally so as to maximize the attainment
of these preferences
– actors behave in a highly strategic manner that presumes extensive calculation: canvassing all
possible options to select those conferring maximum benefit
• Institutions minimize the costs of exchange: they reduce the transaction costs of undertaking
the same “making deals” or collective decision-making activity without
– In political realm, institutions are devices created by the relevant actors to resolve a series of
collective action dilemmas: e.g prisoner’s dilemmas, the tragedy of the commons
• Institutions structure actors’ interactions, limiting the range and sequence of alternatives on
the choice-agenda or by providing information and enforcement mechanisms that reduce
uncertainty about the corresponding behavior of others. E.g. zoning regulation
• Institutions are instrumental and created through actors’ strategic calculation: institutions
revolves around voluntary agreement by the relevant actors; institution is subject to a
process of competitive selection; it will survive as long as providing more benefits to the
actors than alternate institutional form. E.g. congressional voting rules, criteria of presidential
candidates