Not for citation without authors permission REVISIONIST PUBLIC CHOICE THEORY*

Introduction In a recent essay Christiano (2004) coined a distinction between 'mainstream' and 'revisionist' rational choice political theory, and cast us in the role of revisionist theorists 1. While we disagree with some aspects of Christiano's argument 2 , we broadly accept our designated role as revisionist public choice theorists. The major purposes of this brief paper are to provide a summary statement of the revisionist position as we see it, and to sketch what we see as the advantages of this position over its more mainstream alternative. One preliminary terminological note requires some attention. While Christiano refers to 'rational choice political theory', in this paper we will use the term 'public choice theory'. However, we do not intend this use of terms to indicate a distinction. Indeed for the purposes of this discussion, we take the two phrases to be interchangeable. We believe that the choice between 'rational choice political theory' and 'public choice theory' is more a matter of identifying the audience than it is identifying either methodological or substantive distinctions 3. A central point of relevance in relation to public choice theory concerns the specification of the content of the idea of rationality. In Christiano's terminology, with which we have no argument, mainstream rational choice theory " …adheres strictly to the thesis of homo economicus. In other words, it explains the operation of institutions and justifies the reform of those institutions under the assumption that individuals normally maximise their own utility in every action they undertake. " (Christiano (2004), p123). The identification of utility maximisation with homo economicus conflates two distinguishable aspects of the homo economicus notion – one referring to utility maximisation and the other to the precise content of utility functions. But we broadly accept that the mainstream public choice position is one that emphasises a relatively narrow conception of self-interest as motivating choice in the political as well as the economic domain. By contrast, revisionist public choice theory seeks to move away from the strict conception of homo economicus, and this movement has several dimensions. We will focus on three of these dimensions – one relating directly to the content of rational desires and challenging the primacy of narrow self-interest; a second relating to the act-by-act application of rationality whatever the content of desires (or preferences); and a third relating to the specific behavioural implications of rationality assumptions in particular situations. We refer to …