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Four Chapters:

Problems of Rationality Under Coalition Governments:

In some political systems, only rarely does any one party receive over half the votescast. Hence coalitions are formed so government may still by consent by the governed

(the majority of the voting). In such a system, one individual's ballot does not support

the policies of any one party. Instead, it supports the whole coalition that party joins.

Thus the meaning of a vote for any party depends upon what coalitions it is likely to

enter, which in turn depends upon how other voters will vote.

Each voter makes his/her decision only after he/she estimates other voters' decisions.This creates a vicious circle in that everybody make their decisions based on

everybody else's decisions, which means that there no independent variables or

decisions in this case. In this case, a voter will either abstain (rational), or decide that

it is just easier to vote for favorite party regardless of the coalition that it might form

depending on other votes (which is irrational). Thus, some voters are driven by the

difficulty of rationally selecting a government to treat elections as expressions of

preference, which is irrational in our model.

The Process of Becoming Informed

Decision making is a process which consumes all kind of resources, scarce andotherwise, like time. Hence, economy must be practiced in determining how many

resources shall be employed in it (keeping in mind that rationality here means

maximizing output using the least input possible or minimizing input for the most

output possible). Resources here are the input, decisions are outputs. This fact forces

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decision-makers to select only a part of the total available information for use in

making choices (for instance if I want to select a part for which I will vote, I (as a

young single woman)will need to select a number, not all, policies in which I am

interested in and vote accordingly). The principles or criteria of selection they use

depend upon the end for which the information is a means.

In a complex society, information which is used by one citizen is often gathered,transmitted, and analyzed by others. If the user is to know what his information really

means in terms of his decision-making, he must be sure these others have the same

principles of selection he has, or know how their principles differ from his.

Even choosing one's own selection principles is difficult, but by a process of trial anderror, each rational citizen finds a set that best serves his political ends and he must

check his data frequently so as to detect any deviation from the selection principles.

The rational individual in this model thinks in terms of cost-return (input vs output).At

least the input has to equal the output. (Is it worth it?)

How do we compute the cost-return of acquiring information?The return or benefit from information is is computed by:

1. first weighing the importance of of making a right instead of a wrong decision.2. To this value is applied the probability that the bit of information being considered

will be useful in making this decision.

3. The cost is the opportunity cost of acquiring this bit of information, which is the costof the alternative that must be forgone in order to pursue a acquiring this particular bit

of information. Put another way, the benefits you could have received by taking an

alternative action.

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The decision maker continues to aquire information until the return equals the cost to

him/her.