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Examines rational-choice models that seek to span the theoretical identity-expression gap: (1) analyses in which choice phenomena replace identity & expressive phenomena, denying their importance; (2) analyses that take identity & expressive motivations as given aspects of individual preference & exploring their impacts in rational-choice terms; & (3) analyses that construct more foundational rational-choice models of social interaction & employ them to look at the character & effects of identity & expressive phenomena occurring therein. Focus is on the interrelated & identity-expressive & irrational phenomena of voting behavior, partisanship & ideology, & ethnic politics & violence, drawing on various models & theoretical perspectives. It is found that rational choice & identity expression, despite being seen as mutually exclusive analytically & theoretically, can complement & clarify each other; limitations to the application of such theories are delineated, noting that these differ from those typically elaborated. J. Zendejas

Leadership is a means by which social groups attempt to realize gains from cooperation, coordination, and efficient allocation. The attempt to achieve such gains gives rise to further, overarching problems of coordination. The latter problems are recurrent but are likely to vary from one situation to the next; this makes decentralized methods of solution especially difficult, and provides the ultimate reason leadership is needed, invented, and accepted. Solution of such overarching problems makes leadership possible in the basic problems in which social gains are available, including activities such as organizing, sanctioning, communicating, and allocating. The stability of leadership is based on the group's need to solve coordination problems; as a result, a leader has discretion or "power," and can get away with less-than-maximal service of group goals. This approach to understanding leadership suggests several useful techniques for the study of political leadership in particular settings.

Examines the usefulness of an equilibrium-based rational choice theory for analysis of the efficacy of informal & formal social institutions in combining beliefs & conduct in such a way as to constrain individual behavior. An equilibrium-based rational choice model of repeated cooperation in the two-player prisoner's dilemma game is constructed to ascertain the organizational effectiveness of various equilibria. Absent communication, equilibrium is achieved in a kind of tit-for-tat strategy of individual punishments. When the model is revised to allow communication, it is found that a true institution is achieved in which the whole group monitors & punishes deviant behavior, but this outcome is accomplished at significant costs. Such costs are partly ameliorated with the establishment of a central communication system directed by a single enforces. While the creation of a director reduces the costs of communication, it also raises the issue of who monitors the director. The notion of institutions as equilibria is defended as a useful approach for analyzing institutional stability & the effects of institutions in various areas of social life. 4 Tables. D. M. Smith

Sometimes an emotional irritant can be intellectually productive and provocative. For me, this was the case with Theodore Lowi's APSA presidential address, reprinted in the American Political Science Review (Lowi 1992). While disagreeing at many points with Lowi's account of the development of political science and with his critiques of the currently "hegemonic" subfields of "public opinion, public policy, and public choice," I am led ultimately to clarify my own understanding of the relationship between politics, ideology, and science. This response to Lowi's address is intended to sketch a different view of the relation between science, especially social science, and government; to argue with Lowi's assessment of the value of reductionist paradigms such as those employed by the three hegemonic subfields; and to say that many of the rest of us are passionate about politics too. In particular, it is intended to indicate how "public choice," my own favored member of that holy trinity, is in fact well suited to address issues critical to the matters of social value with which Lowi is concerned.