Without a solid majority supporting a tenure candidate, insiders say, ad hoc approval is unlikely and rational choice academics, who comprise roughly a quarter of the senior ranks of Harvard's government department, constitute a formidable voting block in promotion decisions.

As a result, they have been able to have a significant impact on the department, particularly with Shepsle at the department's helm for the past three years.

"He had an agenda--he might deny that but he did," Hoffman says. "Some of us felt a bit run over."

'Big Tent'

But Shepsle says the department is a "big tent" and can accommodate all styles of scholarship. What is more, he continues, the department stands to benefit by incorporating as much of the cutting edge of the discipline as possible in its faculty and curriculum.

The importance of expanding the ranks of rational choice academics was put even more directly by Eaton Professor of Government Robert H. Bates, who wrote a controversial article two years ago on the need to blend quantitative research with traditional "area studies," that examine the history and culture of a particular place.

"Not only will our students need to possess area skills, such as languages; they will also need training in...formal theory, statistics and the mathematics to do both," Bates wrote, adding, "Departments will have to rethink their approach to evaluating junior personnel."

The resulting explosion of rational choice research has left political science journals looking increasingly like calculus textbooks, a trend that infuriates traditionalists. But rational choice scholars argue that the rigor of their methodology is precisely what makes it valuable to departments like Harvard's.