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Rational-Choice Models and Asian Studies

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 March 2011

Daniel Little
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The rational-choice paradigm has been attractive to many area specialists in their efforts to arrive at explanations of social and political behavior in various parts of the world. This model of explanation is simple yet powerful; we attempt to explain a pattern of social behavior or an enduring social arrangement as the aggregate outcome of the goal-directed choices of large numbers of rational agents. Why did the Nian rebellion occur? It was the result of the individual-level survival strategies of north China peasants (Perry 1980). Why did the central places of late imperial Sichuan conform to the hexagonal arrays predicted by central-place theory? Because participants—consumers, merchants, and officials—made rational decisions based on considerations of transport cost (Skinner 1964–65). Why was late imperial Chinese agriculture stagnant? Because none of the actors within the agricultural system had both the incentive and the capacity to invest in agricultural innovation (Lippit 1987).

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The Journal of Asian Studies , Volume 50 , Issue 1 , February 1991, pp. 35 - 52
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Copyright © The Association for Asian Studies, Inc. 1991

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