Emotion and addiction lie on a continuum between simple visceral drives such as hunger, thirst, and sexual desire at one end and calm, rational decision making at the other. Although emotion and addiction involve visceral motivation, they are also closely linked to cognition and culture. They thus provide the ideal vehicle for Jon Elster's study of the interrelation between three explanatory approaches to behavior: neurobiology, culture, and choice.
The book is organized around parallel analyses of emotion and addiction in order to bring out similarities as well as differences....
Emotion and addiction lie on a continuum between simple visceral drives such as hunger, thirst, and sexual desire at one end and calm, rational dec...
This unique volume presents a theory of capitalist collective action and a case study of the pre-World War II American coal industry to which the theory is applied. The author examines the irony of capitalist firms that do not want to compete with each other, but often cannot avoid doing so. He then explains under what conditions businesses would be able to organize their competition and identifies the economic and political factors that facilitate or inhibit this organization. The case study not only illustrates the theory, but demonstrates how the competitive relations of capitalist firms...
This unique volume presents a theory of capitalist collective action and a case study of the pre-World War II American coal industry to which the theo...
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...
Resistance and Rebellion: Lessons from Eastern Europe explains how ordinary people become involved in resistance and rebellion against powerful regime...
The essays in this volume offer the most thorough and up-to-date discussion available of the relationship between addiction and rationality. This is the only book-length treatment of the subject and includes contributions from philosophers, psychiatrists, neurobiologists, sociologists, and economists. The volume offers an up-to-date exposition of the neurophysiology of addiction, a critical examination of the Becker theory of rational addiction, an argument for a "visceral theory of addiction," a discussion of compulsive gambling as a form of addiction, several discussions of George Ainslie's...
The essays in this volume offer the most thorough and up-to-date discussion available of the relationship between addiction and rationality. This is t...
A systematic, critical examination of Karl Marx's social theories and their philosophical presuppositions. Through extensive discussions of the texts Jon Elster offers a balanced and detailed account of Marx's views that is at once sympathetic, undogmatic and rigorous. Equally importantly he tries to assess 'what is living and what is dead in the philosophy of Marx', using the analytical resources of contemporary social science and philosophy. Professor Elster insists on the need for microfoundations in social science and provides a systematic criticism of functionalism and teleological...
A systematic, critical examination of Karl Marx's social theories and their philosophical presuppositions. Through extensive discussions of the texts ...
The essays in this collection, on stratification, organization and the discipline of sociology, all bear upon a general theoretical question: what models of rationality are necessary or suitable to explain individual and collective action in institutional contexts? Professor Stinchcombe was one of the first sociologists to write on this question; and this collection includes a new essay which takes account of recent work done in the tradition Stinchcombe did much to institute. The first group of essays - on class, stratification and mobility - addresses core problems of the discipline and...
The essays in this collection, on stratification, organization and the discipline of sociology, all bear upon a general theoretical question: what mod...
The essays in this volume consider the question of whether the self is a unity or whether it should be conceived without metaphor as divided--as a "multiple self." The issue is a central one for several disciplines. It bears directly on the account of rationality and the explanation of individual decision-making and behavior. Is the hypothesis of a multiple self required to deal with the problems of self-deception and weakness of will; and can the conceptual tools developed in the study of interpersonal conflict be applied to the analysis of intra-personal struggle? The essays, by a number of...
The essays in this volume consider the question of whether the self is a unity or whether it should be conceived without metaphor as divided--as a "mu...
Minority governments in parliamentary democracies are conventionally considered to be unstable and ineffective aberrations from the principle of majority rule. Through analysis of over 350 postwar governments, the author shows that minority governments are neither exceptional nor unstable but in fact a common feature of parliamentary democracies and frequently perform as well as, or better than, majority coalitions. Using the Italian and Norwegian governments as case studies, he suggests that minority governments are particularly likely to form when parties anticipate competitive elections...
Minority governments in parliamentary democracies are conventionally considered to be unstable and ineffective aberrations from the principle of major...
