DOI 10.1007/s11127-010-9625-6

Economists win Nobel Prizes for elegant blackboard exercises in pure reason and political scientists win Nobel Prizes for detailed studies of practical reason. Such a noble intellectual division of labor—economists study economic theory and political scientists study political realities—generates tensions for rational choice theory (RCT). Is RCT a pure or an applied theory? Does RCT work in limited or broad domains of human behavior? Does RCT produce explanations or understandings of politics? Examining these tensions in the RCT community help us appreciate the significance of Elinor Ostrom’s Prize. Tension No. 1: is RCT a pure or an applied theory? RCT begins as a bare bones Gedanken or thought experiment. Imagining the simplest possi-ble situation, this approach offers a generic version of rationality characteristically focused on spontaneous order problems under the state of nature, anarchy, or veil of ignorance. Some theorists begin with a biological view of human nature as material self interest and self preservation. Other theorists uplift biology and begin with a supposedly edifying moral phi-losophy of responsibility, obligation, and duty—disinterested observers who bargain fairly, actors who maximin justice, or agents who maximize the total utility of their collectivity. Generic interactions and aggregations of preferences and beliefs then occurs. Social order thus arises automatically and is sustained independently of agents ’ intentions. The results succeed or fail at simultaneously upholding individual freedom and coordinating individual self-interest in mutually beneficial ways. Such transcendental theories are institution-free. Missing the structure that constitutes real-world human interactions, the pure study of spontaneous order reveals the paradoxe