Politics and Uncertainty: Theory, Models and Applications - Hardcover

Cioffi-Revilla, Claudio

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0521581214 ISBN 13: 9780521581219

Publisher: Cambridge University Press, 1998

Synopsis

Uncertainty is an ever-present and ineradicable aspect of politics. It affects all important issues of governance and policy, in both domestic and international contexts. Rather than treating the uncertainty of politics as a mystery, this book provides an original and direct treatment of political uncertainty as a scientifically-knowable phenomenon with well-defined principles and substantive properties. Specific applications of this theory of political uncertainty are demonstrated in diverse areas of politics, examining such questions as when and how wars break out, when and how governments collapse, and when and how political cooperation emerges. The author shows how probability and mathematical modeling can play a central role in understanding such complex and fundamental issues.

About this title

Review

"This is a profound book. It seeks to explore the basic configurations of political reality and expose its inherently uncertain foundations. In this, its central mission, it succeeds. It is also an ambitious book in seeking to lay the foundaitons for both micropolitical and macropolitical analysis. ...Cioffi-Revilla has given us a splendid essay on political uncertainty. He has presented a unique way of systematically decomposing political events into their constituent structures and highlighting the nature of their uncertainty in ways that enrich our understanding of politics." Manus I Midlarsky, American Political Science Review

"Claudio Cioffi-Revilla ranks high among political theorists who advise the use of mathematics to make political science more precise and scientific. Politics and Uncertainty couples politics with randomness, from which it follows that mathematical models can make what is improbable predictable." Bertil L. Hanson, Perspectives on Political Science

Book Description

Uncertainty is an ever-present and ineradicable aspect of politics, affecting all important issues of governance and policy. Rather than treating the uncertainty of politics as a mystery, this book provides an original and direct treatment of political uncertainty as a scientifically knowable phenomenon.

Edition details

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Publication date: 1998
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0521581214
• ISBN 13: 9780521581219
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 364