Evolving Political Science: Biological Adaptation, Rational Action, and Symbolism in Political Science

Political science, as a discipline, has been reluctant to adopt theories and methodologies developedin fields studying human behavior from an evolutionary standpoint. I ask whether evolutionary concepts arereconcilable with standard political-science theories and whether those concepts help solve puzzles to whichthese theories classically are applied. I find that evolutionary concepts readily and simultaneously accommodatetheories of rational choice, symbolism, interpretation, and acculturation. Moreover, phenomenaperennially hard to explain in standard political science become clearer when human interactions areunderstood in light of natural selection and evolutionary psychology. These phenomena include the politicaland economic effects of emotion, status, personal attractiveness, and variations in information-processing anddecision-making under uncertainty; exemplary is the use of ‘‘focal points’’ in multiple-equilibrium games. Iconclude with an overview of recent research by, and ongoing debates among, scholars analyzing politics inevolutionarily sophisticated terms.