Political Extremism and Rationality

Political extremism is widely considered to be the product of irrational behavior. The distinguishing feature of this collection by well-known economists and political scientists from North America, Europe and Australia is to propose a variety of explanations which all insist on the rationality of extremism. Contributors use variants of this approach to shed light on subjects such as the conditions under which democratic parties take extremist positions, the relationship between extremism and conformism, the strategies adopted by revolutionary movements, and the reasons why extremism often leads to violence. The authors identify four core issues in the study of the phenomenon: the nature (definition) of extremism and its origins in both democratic and authoritarian settings, the capacity of democratic political systems to accommodate extremist positions, the strategies (civil disobedience, assassination, lynching) chosen by extremist groups, and the circumstances under which extremism becomes a threat to democracy.

List of figures and tables; Introduction Albert Breton, Gianluigi Galeotti, Pierre Salmon, and Ronald Wintrobe; Part I. Extremism and Rationality: 1. The crippled epistemology of extremism Russell Hardin; 2. Leadership and passion in extremist politics Ronald Wintrobe; 3. Information control, loss of autonomy, and the emergence of political extremism Albert Breton and Silvana Dalmazzone; Part II. Extremism in Constitutional Democracies: 4. Extremism and monomania Pierre Salmon; 5. Some democratic propensities for extreme results Geoffrey Brennan; 6. Strategic positioning and campaigning Amihai Glazer; 7. At the outskirts of the constitution Gianluigi Galeotti; 8. Is democracy an antidote to extremism? Harold Hochman; Part III. Extremism in Non-Democratic Settings: 9. The political life cycle of extremist organizations Mario Ferrero; 10. Rationally violent tactics: evidence from modern Islamic fundamentalism Luisa Giurato and Maria Cristina Molinari; 11. De Bello Omniumi Contra Omnesj Guido Ortona; Index.