WEAK MODELS, NIL HYPOTHESES, AND DECORATIVE STATISTICS - IS THERE REALLY NO HOPE

Donald Green and lan Shapiro contend that rational choice models have made negligible contributions to the empirical study of politics. Publ ished tests systematically violate some basic research principles, the y say, and they ascribe the problem to modelers' universalist aim of e xplaining all human behavior. This review critiques some of the author s' principles, which seem to derive from an extreme form of Popperiani sm combined with norms around null hypothesis testing. Their attributi on of universalism is exaggerated; what they are seeing is actually a desire to unify different selected areas, abasic goal in theoretical e xplanation. One advantage of rational choice models is that they frequ ently make precise predictions. Models that can do this offer an escap e from the uninformative ritual of null hypotheses tests.