Research Affiliate, Program in Science, Technology, and Society; E51-185c
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
amadae@mit.edu
S.M. Amadae studies contemporary normative theory, philosophy of public policy, human rights, philosophy of social science, history of political thought, science, technology and society, international relations and security, and American politics.
Dr. Amadae is currently a University Lecturer at the Faculty of Social Sciences at the University of Helsinki. She is a 2020 Berggruen Fellow at Stanford University’s Center for the Advanced Study of the Behavioral Sciences and a research affiliate with Cambridge University’s Centre for the Study of Existential Risk. Amadae’s current research at CASBS analyzes neoliberal forms of capitalism which are characterized by highly inequitable distributional outcomes. She is conducting research on the Nordic Model of political economy as an alternative to the deregulated global movement of capitalism which lacks consideration for the inclusive flourishing of local communities and diverse constituencies. Amadae’s experience with algorithmic governance includes the role of computational forms of rationality in public policy, and the cybersecurity risks of automated decision systems in nuclear command and control.
Endorsements for Prisoners of Reason:
“Prisoners of Reason is a remarkable combination of the insights of game theory and political philosophy, especially as applied to the problem of nuclear deterrence. Thoroughly researched and insightfully argued, it probes and criticizes the basic assumptions that are embedded in the modern analysis of international relations. In doing so, it reveals neglected opportunities for how we can think about cooperation and accommodation in an increasingly dangerous era of world politics.”
Columbia University Director, Columbia Global Policy Initiative
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“S.M. Amadae has written a fascinating account that links the most important recent advances in social science with major events in political, military, and intellectual history in the twentieth century. This book adds to our understanding of economic and social theories through an in-depth analysis of people involved and institutions of that time.”
John Leverett Professor and David A. Wells Professor of Political Economy, Chair of Ph.D. Program in Business Economics at the Harvard Business School, Harvard University
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“In a deep re-thinking, S.M. Amadae shows that game-theoretic thinking, especially in the form of the Prisoner’s Dilemma, underpins not only American nuclear strategy, but neoliberalism in the domestic political economy and also multiple arguments from a different part of the political spectrum for the powerful role of institutions in international politics. Far from being value-neutral, this way of thinking has changed more than reflected much of American policy and life.”
Adlai E. Stevenson Professor of International Politics, Columbia University
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“S.M. Amadae has a wonderfully arresting thesis concerning why winning the Cold War has proved so disappointing. Game theory’s strategic model of rational agency became the animating model of liberal society. We lost the Classical liberal ‘no-harm’ principle and gained the ‘no-holds barred’ premise of today’s neo-liberalism. This is a forensic analysis of how game theory has in this way led us astray.”
Professor of Political Economy, King’s College London
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"Based on a far more nuanced understanding of the technicalities of rational choice theory than previous critiques, Prisoners of Reason can be much more incisive in exploring the field’s entanglements between the positive and the normative. One can disagree with Amadae about where to lay responsibility for modern ideologies while still finding important food for thought about the sometimes doleful uses of social science in modern society."
Thomas F. Eagleton University Professor of Public Affairs and Political Science, Washington University, St. Louis
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“Prisoners of Reason is an impressive, indeed encyclopedic, overview and critique of the use of game theory to analyze social and political life – from theory to policy. Even those of us friendly to game-theoretic analysis will better appreciate its limits and abuses, and the narrow view of human motivation with which it has been too-often associated.”
James E. Rogers Professor of Philosophy, University of Arizona
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“A groundbreaking study of the appalling political consequences of a disastrously impoverished and distressingly dominant understanding of human rationality.”
Walter E. Meyer Professor of Law, New York University School of Law
Rationalizing Capitalist Democracy: The Cold War Origins of Rational Choice Liberalism (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003) explains the intellectual foundations and architecture of the schools of social choice, public choice, and positive political theory. It investigates how the rise of rational choice theory is inseparable from the American Cold War effort to rebuild the foundations of democracy and the free market.
Rationalizing Capitalist Democracy won the American Political Science Association’s J. David Greenstone best book award for Politics and History in 2004. It received the following book reviews:
Stanley L. Engerman, Business History Review, Spring, 2004.
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David Colander, Journal of Economic History, Spring, 2004, 64:281-282.
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Peter Stone, Perspectives on Politics, June 2004, Vol. 2:2, 347-8.
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James Midgley, Journal of Sociology and Social Welfare, Sept. 2004.
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Qualitative Methods, Fall 2004, 25.
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Michael Coulter, Journal of Markets and Morality, Fall 2005, Vol. 7:2, 579-582.
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Robert D. Tollison, “A Snipe Hunt,” Public Choice, Sept. 2004, Vol. 120:3-4, 241-264.
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Philippe Fontaine, ISIS, Sept. 2004, Vol. 95:3, 524.
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Grégoire Mallard, Critique Internationale, Jan. 2005, Vol. 26: 1, 161-65.
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Andrés Rius, History of Political Economy, Winter 2005, Vol. 37, 363-65.
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David Samuels, “On ‘“American” Methods, “Comparative” Theories,’” American Political Science Association – Comparative Politics Newsletter, Winter, 2005, Vol. 16:1, 5-6.
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Philip Mirowski, Review Essay, “Sleights of the Invisible Hand: Economists Intervention in Political Theory,” Journal of the History of Economic Thought, March 2005, Vol. 27:1, 87-99.
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Morris Altman, Journal of Economic Literature, March 2005, Vol. 43:1, 148-49.
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Robert Adcock and Mark Bevir, Review Essay, Political Studies Review, 2005, Vol. 3, 1-16.
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Frank Annunziata, Journal of American History, Dec. 2005, Vol. 92:3, 1045-46.
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Richard Tuck, “The Rise of Rational Choice,” European Journal of Sociology, Dec. 2005, Vol 43:3, 587-593.
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Jamie Cohen-Cole, Review Essay, “Cybernetics and the Machinery of
Rationality,” The British Journal for the History of Science,” July
2007, Vol. 40.
Rationalizing Capitalist Democracy:
Prisoners of Reason:
