Prisoners of Reason

S. M. Amadae is a research affiliate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and has held positions as an assistant professor of political science at the Ohio State University and an associate professor of political science at the Central European University. Amadae's first book, Rationalizing Capitalist Democracy: The Cold War Origins of Rational Choice Liberalism (2003), was awarded the American Political Science Association's J. David Greenstone book award for History and Politics in 2004. This thought-provoking political theorist who works on the foundations of liberalism and the philosophy of political economy has also contributed articles to the Journal of Economic Methodology, History of European Ideas, Studies in the History and Philosophy of Science, Economics and Philosophy, the American Journal of Economics and Sociology, Ethics, and Idealistic Studies. Amadae graduated with a Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley and has held appointments at the University of Cambridge, the London School of Economics, the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, the New School, and Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government.

Preliminaries: 1. Neoliberalism; 2. Prisoner's Dilemma; Part I. War: Introduction; 3. Assurance; 4. Deterrence; Part II. Government: Introduction; 5. Hobbesian anarchy; 6. Social contract; 7. Unanimity; 8. Consent; 9. Collective action; Part III. Evolution: Introduction; 10. Selfish gene; 11. Tit for tat; Conclusion; 12. Pax Americana.