The research program of the rational choice approach: A reconstruction

Abstract

One of the major theoretical paradigms in sociology and the social sciences is the rational choice approach (RCA). George C. Homans, with his article Social Behavior as Exchange from 1958, is the founder of the RCA in sociology. Although in the meantime there is a vast and burgeoning literature applying and extending the approach, it is still not clear what its central assumptions are and what arguments contemporary rational choice scholars adduce that speak in favor or against it. The present paper addresses these questions.