Ideas, Interest, and Credible Commitments in the American Revolution

Rakove, Jack N.; Rutten, Andrew; Weingast, Barry R.

doi:10.2139/ssrn.1153515

Cited by 11 publications

(12 citation statements)

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“…This treatment ignores considerable differences of opinion on each side of the Atlantic. In our companion article, we explain how these ideas came to dominate in the colonies (Rakove et al, 1999).…”

Section: Contrasting Views Of the Constitutionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…By the mid-1770s, the predictions had come true. The weight of the British actions thus altered the moderates' perception of British malevolence, pushing them into the radicals' camp (Rakove et al, 1999). By the end of 1774, it was hard for the moderates to sustain the view that the British were benign.…”

Section: A Short Narrative Of Eventsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Along with a companion paper (Rakove et al, 1999), we here venture new answers to these questions. This argument begins with the theory of credible commitments to interpret how American leaders argued that the traditional institutions of the empire credibly protected their rights.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 97%

“…Indeed, historians fail to explain a range of questions about the American Revolution (see Rakove et al, 1999). For our purposes, we consider three puzzles.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Alarm rose across the colonies as many Americans came to believe that the British were abandoning their long-term credible commitments to American security, putting American ways of life and sources of livelihoods at risk. Further, British interventions in the colonies threatened the view that British intentions toward America were benevolent (Rakove et al, 1999).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Rationality, Inaccurate Mental Models, and Self-confirming Equilibrium

Figueiredo

Rakove

Weingast

2006

Journal of Theoretical Politics

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Rational choice theorists have long been ambivalent about the rationality postulate. Although many agree that humans have imperfect foresight and inaccurate understandings of the world within which they act, no satisfactory approach relaxing the rationality postulates exists. In this article, we apply a new method that allows us to model directly rational action when agents have incomplete or inaccurate mental models of their world. In particular, we utilize the game theoretic notion of self-confirming equilibrium. The selfconfirming equilibrium framework allows us to model an environment where a player's predictions about one another's behavior are inaccurate. It also allows us to model a common aspect of disputes; viz., that both sides believe they are acting reasonably while the other side is acting unreasonably. Finally, the approach allows a type of surprise in which a player's mis-conjectures about another's behavior results in behavior that was not anticipated. We apply this framework to the problem of the American Revolution, helping to resolve several unexplained puzzles in the historical literature. Historians of the Revolution emphasize the role of ideas in underpinning the revolutionary crisis. From the rational choice standpoint, a critical omission in the literature is that historians do not connect the realm of ideas with the realm of action. We demonstrate how the framework we propose can more directly shed light on three aspects absent in the existing literature. First, to explain why either side fought about abstract ideals or how those ideals were connected to the realm of action, and thus why the two sides failed to come to some accommodation despite their differences. Second, to explain why the colonists became so incensed over seemingly trivial taxes imposed by the British after the Seven Years' War ended in 1763. And, finally, to explain that if the clash of fundamental ideals led the two sides to armed conflict, The authors gratefully acknowledge helpful conversations with Downloaded from how the British and the Americans could be unaware of their profound differences during the previous 100 plus years of cooperation.

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Section: Contrasting Views Of the Constitutionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: A Short Narrative Of Eventsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 97%

“…Indeed, historians fail to explain a range of questions about the American Revolution (see Rakove et al, 1999). For our purposes, we consider three puzzles.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 3 more Smart Citations

Rationality, Inaccurate Mental Models, and Self-confirming Equilibrium

Figueiredo

Rakove

Weingast

2006

Journal of Theoretical Politics

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Economics, Economic History and Historical Data

Geloso

2018

An Economist’s Guide to Economic History

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Democracy and the Limits of Self-Government

Przeworski

2010

382

103

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The political institutions under which we live today evolved from a revolutionary idea that shook the world in the second part of the eighteenth century: that a people should govern itself. Nevertheless, if we judge contemporary democracies by the ideals of self-government, equality, and liberty, we find that democracy is not what it was dreamt to be. This book addresses central issues in democratic theory by analyzing the sources of widespread dissatisfaction with democracies around the world. With attention throughout to historical and cross-national variations, the focus is on the generic limits of democracy in promoting equality, effective participation, control of governments by citizens, and liberty. The conclusion is that, although some of this dissatisfaction occurs for good reason, some is based on an erroneous understanding of how democracy functions. Hence, although the analysis identifies the limits of democracy, it also points to directions for feasible reforms.

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Ideas, Interest, and Credible Commitments in the American Revolution

Cited by 11 publications

References 0 publications

Rationality, Inaccurate Mental Models, and Self-confirming Equilibrium

Rationality, Inaccurate Mental Models, and Self-confirming Equilibrium

Economics, Economic History and Historical Data

Democracy and the Limits of Self-Government

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