Elster Jon. Explaining Social Behavior: More Nuts and Bolts for the Social Sciences

Cambridge University Press, 2007. - 498 p.This book is an expanded and revised edition of the author’s critically acclaimed volume Nuts and Bolts for the Social Sciences. In twenty-six succinct chapters, Jon Elster provides an account of the nature of explanation in the social sciences; an analysis of the mental states – beliefs, desires, and emotions – that are precursors to action; a systematic comparison of rational-choice models of behavior with alternative accounts; a discussion of what the social sciences may learn from neuroscience and evolutionary biology; and a review of mechanisms of social interaction ranging from strategic behavior to collective decision making. He offers an overview of key explanatory mechanisms in the social sciences, relying on hundreds of examples and drawing on a large variety of sources – psychology, behavioral economics, biology, political science, historical writings, philosophy, and fiction. In accessible and jargon-free language, Elster aims at accuracy and clarity while eschewing formal models. In a provocative conclusion, he defends the centrality of qualitative social science in a two-front war against soft (literary) and hard (mathematical) forms of obscurantism.
Jon Elster is Professor (Chaire de Rationalite et Sciences Sociales) at the College de France. A Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and Corresponding Fellow of the British Academy, he is a recipient of fellowships from the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation and the Russell Sage Foundation, among many others. Dr. Elster has taught at the University of Chicago and Columbia University and has held visiting professorships at many universities in the United States and Europe. He is the author or editor of thirty-four books, most recently Closing the Books: Transitional Justice in Historical Perspective and Retribution and Restitution in the Transition to Democracy.