Mind, Will, and Choice

Abstract

This article probes the role of mind, will, and choice in the domain of contextual political science. It argues that many questions about how context affects choice are better answered by focusing on the brain instead of the mind and explains that incorporating insights about brains and preferences into context-oriented research designs can provide greater clarity about how, when, and why factors such as time, place, language, and culture affect political choices. It also shows that non-cooperative game theory can be used very effectively to identify key causal attributes of important contextual variables relevant to political analysis.