Jun Okumura wrote:
'I'm now confused.
Really confused. There seems to be nothing close to a consensus as to what "culture" and "rational choice"
mean and what their real-world significance is. So how different is this from playing a single board game using chess, shogi, and xiangqi rules at the same time?'

I don't think I can blame Jun Okumura for being confused. I think what tends to happen within academia is that competing explanations tend to arise, but they tend to arise and develop within different disciplines and sub-disciplines that are largely institutionally insulated from one another and have little or no structural need to engage with one another's explanations - they have their own departments, journals, conferences, etc etc. So polscis, economists, sociologists, anthropologists etc can all go on their own merry way, ignoring one another. Little dialogue takes place and even when it does, it tends to take place at a snail's pace and on the margins of disciplines. There are exceptions, of course, this forum included, but they are just that, exceptions.
Personally I think that the metaphor of one board game (social science) using several sets of rules is an excellent one. It's a very regrettable situation, but at least it illustrates why institutional explanations of social phenomena have great merits!

Peter Cave
Lecturer in Japanese Studies
SLLC, University of Manchester