S. M. Amadae is an Adj. Professor of Politics in the Faculty of Social Sciences at the University of Helsinki, and a 2020 Berggruen Fellow at the Center for the Advanced Study of the Social and Behavioral Sciences, Stanford University. She is also affiliated with Science and Technology Studies, Massachusetts Institute of Technology; and the Centre for the Study of Existential Risk, University of Cambridge. Amadae’s books include Prisoners of Reason: Game Theory and Neoliberal Political Economy (Cambridge University Press 2016); and Rationalizing Capitalist Democracy: Cold War Origins of Rational Choice Liberalism (University of Chicago Press 2003).
Projects
Books
In Rationalizing Capitalist Democracy, S. M. Amadae tells the remarkable story of how rational choice theory rose from obscurity to become the intellectual bulwark of capitalist democracy.
Is capitalism inherently predatory? Must there be winners and losers? Is public interest outdated and free-riding rational? Is consumer choice the same as self-determination?