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If this paper were not too slight it might have been given a sub-title: a note on cultural lag in political science. For one of the things I want to suggest is that political scientists, whether out of envy or pure admiration for their economist colleagues, have in recent decades increasingly taken over an equilibrium-market concept from economics without realizing that they have been taking cast-off clothing. The epithet is perhaps unfair. But it does seem that just when economics has been moving away from its concept of the economy as a pure price system and turning to a notion of the economy as a system of power, carried on by power blocs rather than by maximizing individuals, political theory has been taking over the concept of the equilibrating price system and working it into a general theory of the political process. As economics adopts power concepts in a search for realism, political science adopts market concepts in a search for theoretical elegance. In this curious double process of transvestism I do not think political science has been the gainer. Economists may object that they have not abandoned marginal equilibrium analysis, and I would not insist that they have. Certainly they have not abandoned the search for elegance, and if their elegance is getting a little lumpier they are to be applauded for their greater realism. But the political scientists' use of market concepts is clear enough to be a matter of some concern.

Item 285 ; Cover title. ; Includes bibliographical references and index. ; Mode of access: Internet.

At head of title: Form 1236. January, 1944 . ; Mode of access: Internet.

At head of title: Form 1236. September 1942 . ; Mode of access: Internet.

The use of innovative computational models in political economic research as a complement to traditional analytical methodologies.Researchers are increasingly turning to computational methods to study the dynamic properties of political and economic systems. Politicians, citizens, interest groups, and organizations interact in dynamic, complex environments, and the static models that are predominant in political economy are limited in capturing fundamental features of economic decision making in modern democracies. Computational models--numerical approximations of equilibria and dynamics that cannot be solved analytically--provide useful insight into the behavior of economic agents and the aggregate properties of political systems. They serve as a valuable complement to existing mathematical tools.This book offers some of the latest research on computational political economy. The focus is on theoretical models of traditional problems in the field. Each chapter presents an innovative model of interaction between economic agents. Topics include voting behavior, candidate position taking, special interest group contributions, macroeconomic policy making, and corporate decision making.