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Classical thinking on rationality regards it as an all-or-nothing affair. It thus fails to account for the fact that institutions are powerful social factors that frame the contexts within which rational agents supposedly exercise their ability to choose. This poses the classic dilemma: should social explanation refer to individual decisions or to institutions? Wettersten skillfully criticizes some of the most advanced solutions to it, and attempts to formulate a better explanatory unit for the social sciences: the partially rational individual. Since the partially rational individual is also only partially an individual,Wettersten's methodological reconciliation between individualism and holism seems to have some ontological implications too, ones that he seems reluctant to embrace. His book is nevertheless an interesting contribution to the controversy regarding the limits to the explanatory power of social theories.

Individual budgets allow the service user to take control and make decisions about the care that they receive. Manchester was one of 13 local authority development sites chosen by the Department of Health to trial individual budgets. The pilot has ended but the scheme remains strong. Here, Caroline Marsh describes how one individual's life has been transformed through the power of choice.

This volume features the latest scholarship on cognitive processes in interpersonal relationships. It explores such questions as: What special knowledge must a person have to participate in a relationship? What particular language structures do people typically use in entering or conducting relationships? Contributors examine the cognitive processes that individuals bring to relationships, ranging from their thought patterns and attributional styles to the ways in which they recall relationship events and use shared knowledge

(Originally published in John A. Hall & Ian C. Jarvie's [Eds], Transition to Modernity, 1992 [see abstract 93c01707].) Ernest Gellner's theory of the transition to modernity (1988) is criticized for not identifying genuinely unique characteristics of modern industrial societies as they developed in Europe. Japan in the 18th & 19th centuries is shown to have exhibited some of the features of modern, rationalized society that Gellner finds in Europe. It is argued that, since the Japanese & the Chinese were developing rational, scientific cultures independent of European influence, it was only a matter of time before they developed industrial capacity independent of that influence. It is contended that the one trait that sets Europe off from Japan & China is the degree to which the concept of individualism accurately describes social organization. Several aspects of individualism are related to the historical growth of European productivity, but individualism does not seem to be a necessary ingredient for economic growth, as contemporary Japan demonstrates. 10 References. H. von Rautenfeld

China has both mandatory and voluntary individual account pensions that are provided through the government. The experience of China makes a particularly interesting case study concerning the functioning of individual accounts in that its mandatory individual accounts have been defunded to pay for benefits in the associated pay-as-you-go system, while its voluntary individual accounts are fully funded. This paper examines three questions. First, it analyses why the mandatory individual accounts have become defunded and converted largely to notional accounts generally holding little in financial assets, while the voluntary accounts have been fully funded. Second, it examines the merits of funding versus pay-as-you-go financing of pensions in the context of China's economic and demographic situation. Third, it discusses a policy change to insure the sustainability of financing for the defunded individual accounts. The experience of China, with its two types of individual accounts, and with different outcomes for those accounts, may provide lessons for other countries.

I've long followed and much admired CIR's work; Rosenberger v. Rector (free speech) and U.S. v. Morrison (federalism) are two prominent examples over the years, but you can see some of their other cases here. (I'm also one of their occasional academic advisors.) They're hiring, and I thought I'd pass along the details: The Individual…