Resistance and Rebellion: Lessons from Eastern Europe explains how ordinary people become involved in resistance and rebellion against powerful regimes. The book provides a detailed theoretical treatment of the process that pushes and pulls individuals into risk-laden roles. It also reconstructs Lithuanian social networks of the 1940s, through extensive interviews, to illustrate and test the argument. The work conducts comparisons with several other Eastern European nations to show the breadth and depth of the approach. The book contributes to both the general literature on political...

The problem of collective action is that each member of a group wants other members to make necessary sacrifices while he or she "free rides," reaping the benefits of collective action without doing the work. Inevitably the end result is that no one does the work and the common interest is not realized. This book analyzes the social pressure whereby groups solve the problem of collective action. The authors break new ground in showing that the problem of collective action requires a model of group process and cannot be deduced from simple models of individual behavior. They employ formal...

The emergence of a new theory of literature in the German Romantic period constituted a decisive turning point in the history of criticism. A view of the literary work and the artistic process developed that diverged sharply from the dominant classicist understanding of aesthetics and poetics. It recognized the infinite changeablility of genres, and asserted the rights of genius and creative imagination. Professor Behler provides a new account of this crucial movement, illustrating each theoretical topic with close reference to a characteristic work by a major writer of the period.

This book brings together the most important theoretical work of James S. Coleman on problems of collective action. Coleman's work has formed a consistent and highly distinguished attempt to find an account of the workings of social and political processes rooted in the rationality of the individual participants. The chapters address in various ways the fundamental Hobbesian problem of order; the question of how a set of self-interested individuals can arrive at some kind of social order. The volume is organised in three parts. The essays in Part I address the problem of social choice as a...

A distinctive contribution to the subject of the relations between reason, motivation and value

Originally published in 1992, this book examines an elementary human paradox: that we are endangered by our own wishes; or, as Oscar Wilde put it, 'When the gods want to punish us they answer our prayers.' Even though this observation is ancient and confirmed by wide experience, none of the disciplines that deal with decision making explain it adequately. Dr. Ainslie uses findings from behavioral experiments to show that there is a basic tendency for humans to form temporary preferences for the poorer but earlier of two goals, when the poorer goal is closer at hand. The implications provide a...

This 1987 book offers a critique of the liberal theory of the state, focusing on a detailed study of cooperation in the absence of the state and of other kinds of coercion. The discussion includes an analysis of collective action and of the Prisoners' Dilemma supergame. It is a revised and expanded edition of the author's classic work of rational choice theory Anarchy and Cooperation, originally published with John Wiley in 1976. The analysis has been recast and developed here to make it more accessible to non-mathematical readers and to provide a more comprehensive and self-contained...