[4] It employs analytical tools borrowed from neo-classical economics to explain how institutions are created, the behaviour of political actors within it, and the outcome of strategic interaction.
To maximize those preferences actors behave highly instrumental through systematic foresight and strategic cost-benefit calculation.
The institutional environment provides information and enforcement mechanism that reduce uncertainty for each actor about the corresponding behaviour of others.
[7] This 'calculus approach' explains how the institutional setting influences individual behaviour and stresses how strategic interaction determines policy outcomes.
"[8] He argues that alternative perspectives cannot compete with RCI in terms of "its range of testable and generalizable implications.
[10] A key concept of Rational Choice Institutionalism is the principal-agent model borrowed from Neo-classical economics.
Historical Institutionalism emphasizes how small events and accidents may create paths from which it is hard to turn back from.
As a consequence, these other approaches argue that it is unreasonable to assume that a Pareto-optimal equilibrium solution exists to collective action problems.
William H. Riker, a political scientist prominent for his application of game theory and mathematics in political science, argued that a key problem with RCI scholarship was the so-called "inherability problem", which referred to an inability to distinguish whether outcomes resulted from institutions or from the preferences of actors, which made it impossible to predict optimal outcomes.
[16][17] In other words, Moe argues that RCI accounts of political institutions as structures of voluntary cooperation, mutual gains and solutions to collective action problems are unrealistic.
This can be seen during episodes of uncertainty when actors respond in routinized ways, rather than craft original solutions to the newly emergent problems.