Table Of ContentThe Handbook of Rational Choice Social Research
The HANDBOOK of
RATIONAL CHOICE
SOCIAL RESEARCH
edited by
Rafael Wittek
Tom A. B. Snijders
Victor Nee
Stanford Social Sciences
An Imprint of Stanford University Press
Stanford University Press
Stanford, California
©2013 by the Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior
University. All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or
by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and
recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without
the prior written permission of Stanford University Press.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
The handbook of rational choice social research / edited by Rafael
Wittek, Tom A.B. Snijders, and Victor Nee
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-8047-8418-4 (cloth : alk. paper)
1. Rational choice theory. I. Wittek, Rafael, editor of compilation.
II. Snijders, T. A. B., editor of compilation. III. Nee, Victor, editor of
compilation.
HM495.H36 2013
330.01—dc23 2012033972
Typeset at Stanford University Press in 10.5/12 Bembo
Acknowledgments
The editors would like to thank the Russell Sage Foundation for generous sup-
port of an author conference at New York City in November 2007, Suzanne
Nichols for guidance during the early phase of this project, and four anony-
mous reviewers for their constructive suggestions. We also would like to thank
Kate Wahl from Stanford University Press for her encouragement, patience,
and formidable support. Saskia Simon from the Department of Sociology at
the University of Groningen deserves a very special thanks for her high-quality
secretarial support in all phases of this project, including the fi nal preparation
of the manuscript. Rafael Wittek also gratefully acknowledges funding from
the Netherlands’ Organization for Scientifi c Research (NWO) (NWO 016-
005-052 and 400-05-704).
Contents
Contributors ix
Introduction: Rational Choice Social Research 1
Rafael Wittek, Tom A. B. Snijders, and Victor Nee
Part I: Rationality and Decision-making
1 Rationality, Social Preferences, and Strategic Decision-making from a
Behavioral Economics Perspective 33
Simon Gächter
2 Social Rationality, Self-Regulation, and Well-Being: The Regulatory
Signifi cance of Needs, Goals, and the Self 72
Siegwart Lindenberg
3 Rational Choice Research on Social Dilemmas: Embeddedness Effects
on Trust 113
Vincent Buskens and Werner Raub
4 Modeling Collective Decision-making 151
Frans N. Stokman, Jelle Van der Knoop, and Reinier C. H. Van Oosten
Part II: Networks and Inequality
5 Social Exchange, Power, and Inequality in Networks 185
Karen S. Cook and Coye Cheshire
6 Social Capital 220
Henk Flap and Beate Völker
7 Network Dynamics 252
Tom A. B. Snijders
viii Contents
Part III: Communities and Cohesion
8 Rational Choice Research in Criminology: A Multi-Level
Framework 283
Ross L. Matsueda
9 Secularization: Theoretical Controversies Generating
Empirical Research 322
Nan Dirk De Graaf
10 Assimilation as Rational Action in Contexts Defi ned by Institutions
and Boundaries 355
Victor Nee and Richard Alba
Part IV: States and Confl icts
11 Terrorism and the State 381
Ignacio Sánchez-Cuenca
12 Choosing War: State Decisions to Initiate and End Wars and Observe
the Peace Afterward 411
James D. Morrow
13 Rational Choice Approaches to State-Making 443
Edgar Kiser and Erin Powers
Part V: Markets and Organizations
14 Market Design and Market Failure 473
Carlos Cañón, Guido Friebel, and Paul Seabright
15 Organizational Governance 513
Nicolai J. Foss and Peter G. Klein
16 Rational Choice and Organizational Change 556
Rafael Wittek and Arjen Van Witteloostuijn
Index 589
Contributors
richard alba: Distinguished Professor of Sociology at the Center for
Urban Research, City University of New York (CUNY). His fi elds of interest
are race, ethnicity, and immigration. His recent books include Blurring the Color
Line: The New Chance for a More Integrated America (Harvard University Press,
2009), The Next Generation: Immigrant Youth in a Comparative Perspective (co-
edited with Mary Waters, NYU Press, 2011), and the award-winning Remaking
the American Mainstream: Assimilation and Contemporary Immigration (with V. Nee,
Harvard University Press, 2003).
vincent buskens: Professor of Theoretical Sociology, Utrecht University
and Interuniversity Center for Social Science Theory and Methodology (ICS)
and Professor of Empirical Legal Studies, Erasmus School of Law, Erasmus
University Rotterdam. His main research areas are social dilemmas, cooperation,
trust, social networks, mathematical sociology, complexity, experimental research,
empirical studies on regulation and institutions, sociological applications of
neuroscience. He is co-editor of Micro-Macro Links and Microfoundations (with
W. Raub and M. van Assen, Routledge, 2012) and eTrust: Forming Relations
in the Online World (with K. Cook, C. Snijders and C. Cheshire, Russell Sage,
2009).
carlos cañón: Economist at the Financial Stability Division of Banco
de México (Mexican Central Bank). He received his PhD from the Toulouse
School of Economics with a dissertation on the Theory and Econometric Models
of Platforms. His main area of interest is industrial organization, market design,
and econometrics.
coye cheshire: Associate professor at the UC Berkeley School of
Information. He studies social exchange, interpersonal relationships, and paths
of participation in computer-mediated environments. Recent articles have
appeared in Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, Daedalus, and Proceedings of
the ACM Conference of Computer-Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW).
karen s. cook: Ray Lyman Wilbur Professor of Sociology at Stanford
University. Her fields of interest are social psychology, organizational
