國立臺灣大學政治科學論叢

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William Harrison Riker (1920-1993) is one of the founding fathers of modernpolitical science. Recent calling for “Perestroika” in the American Political ScienceAssociation  has  demonstrated  the  dominant  but  controversial  role  played  by  therational choice school in the academia. As a result, it is urgent for Taiwan’s politicalscientists to know more about this school.First, we try to understand the origin and development of this important schoolby reviewing  William  H. Riker’s  research agenda retrospectively.  By  focusing  onrational  choice,  democratic  institution  and  “heresthetics,”  we  discuss  the  content,significance, and implications of these three focuses as the hardcore of the rationalchoice school’s research agenda. Second, we find that these research focuses can beinterpreted as three strategies of competing, ignoring and synthesizing, adopted bythe school to gain its success in the academia. Lastly, we conclude with suggestionsfor applying the rational choice theory to the study of politics in Taiwan.Regardless  of  its  controversial  advancement  in  political  science,  RCT  hasbecome  one  of  the  important  alternative  approaches  in  contemporary  politicalresearch. For its future development in Taiwan’s academia, we need to have a basic understanding of its past. There is an important local purpose by reviewing Riker’scareer  contributions  through  concepts  such  as  positive  political  theory,  newinstitutionalism, and economic studies of politics. In the past, the RCT in Taiwan’spolitical research is under the condition of “imported pseudo-dialogue,” i.e., manycriticisms  but  very  few  substantive  researches.  This  article  can  be  a  meaningfulbeginning of applying RCT in Taiwanese political researches in the future.