Public Choice Theory and Natural Resources: Methodological Explication and Critique

The article is a methodological examination of public choice analysis, with particular reference to the currently topical policy field of natural resources. It is also a methodological critique of public choice analysis on logical, epistemological, and normative grounds. Its purpose is to make scholars of natural resources management aware of the substantive and methodological features of the public choice approach to the field, and to make public choice scholars and philosophers of science aware of the methodological grounds of the approach. The so-called hard core of concepts of public choice are first described in relation to the natural resource policy field, and the selection of these hard core concepts, as well as their distinguishing features from political science, economics, and public administration, are justified. The argument is advanced that the hard core is interrelated by the methodological criterion of logical consistency—one interpretation of the notion of rationality—and the criterion accounts for the impetus behind the growth of the paradigm. It is also argued that the paradigm is buttressed and protected from rival approaches at an epistemological level, and it is shown that a variety of epistemologies have been linked to the approach. Finally, I argue that the congruence of public choice with this variety of epistemologies makes many of the criticisms about the normative implications of the approach inaccurate and misleading.