Private Truths, Public Lies

How can societies experience such dramatic reversals [as the end of apartheid in South Africa, widespread smoking bans and Republican control of Congress] in such short periods? In his inventive and sometimes astonishing book, Timur Kuran offers an answer--one that bears not just on revolutionary movements, but also on feminism, conformity, cognitive dissonance, the moral majority, 'outing' homosexuals, rationality, hate speech codes, Gorbachev, hippies and the caste system (all of which make prominent appearances in these pages)...Much of the interest of Kuran's book is owed to his insistence, unusual and refreshing among economists (of whom he is one), that people's choices, and even their desires, are not given and fixed, but are a function of social and psychological conditions, above all pressures imposed by other people...Kuran's book is a terrific success. -- Cass R. Sunstein * New Republic * A splendid book. It tackles a long list of interesting and important questions that have been discussed at length, and largely unsuccessfully, by scholars from each of the social sciences. The narrow rational choice model simply cannot answer many of these questions. Psychological theories by themselves cannot even address many of them. And sociological theories that take the group as the unit of analysis have made little progress. Kuran patiently and intelligently blends the insights of these disciplines into a behavioral model that moves the discussion forward on many fronts. -- Robert H. Frank * Journal of Economic Literature * From the caste system of India, to communism's rise and fall, to the continuing controversy over affirmative action, Timur Kuran's new theory of social evolution is as provocative as it is ambitious. Merging insights from many disciplines, Private Truths, Public Lies seeks to show how 'preference falsification' shapes social action, biases knowledge, inhibits change, and (from time to time) unleashes revolution...An excellent book that can be read by scholars of all disciplines. Its interdisciplinary insights illuminate a raft of social, political, and economic phenomena. -- Laurence R. Iannaccone * Journal of Economic History * Economist Timur Kuran has written a fascinating study of how even formally 'free' citizens can be socially pressured into 'living a lie,' publicly justifying beliefs and practices that they privately reject, even abhor. -- Frederick R. Lynch * National Review * The core idea of this stimulating book is simple to grasp: Social factors, the nature of which is variable with the circumstances, can have the effect that people falsify their private preferences when they have to express them publicly. -- Raymond Boudon * Contemporary Sociology * [Kuran's] arguments are elegantly made and the lengthy discussions of the applications of the basic ideas are well researched and suffiently detailed to be of considerable interest in their own right...This is a thoughtful, imaginative, and stimulating book which deserves a wide audience. -- Alan Hamlin * Economic Journal * Timur Kuran takes us on a grand journey through world history, from the creation of the Indian caste system to present-day racial quotas in the United States. The journey is guided by the search for the social consequences of a phenomenon that Kuran argues is all-pervasive: preference falsification...Kuran's book opens important new perspectives for the analysis of both individual choice and social change. -- Felix Oberholzer-Gee * Journal of Institutional and Theoretical Economics (Tubingen, Germany) * Few recent contributions to the literature of social science open so many windows. This engagingly written book carries its learning and sophistication lightly. -- Loren E. Lomasky * Independent Review: A Journal of Political Economy * A fascinating study in social and political psychology and public opinion...For those who stress that war, violence and peace start in the minds of men, this is certainly an important work. -- Ge

Timur Kuran is Professor of Economics and Political Science and Gorter Family Professor of Islamic Studies at Duke University.

Preface Living a Lie The Significance of Preference Falsification Private and Public Preferences Private Opinion, Public Opinion The Dynamics of Public Opinion Institutional Sources of Preference Falsification Inhibiting Change Collective Conservatism The Obstinacy of Communism The Ominous Perseverance of the Caste System The Unwanted Spread of Affirmative Action Distorting Knowledge Public Discourse and Private Knowledge The Unthinkable and the Unthought The Caste Ethic of Submission The Blind Spots of Communism The Unfading Specter of White Racism Generating Surprise Unforeseen Political Revolutions The Fall of Communism and Other Sudden Overturns The Hidden Complexities of Social Evolution From Slavery to Affirmative Action Preference Falsification and Social Analysis Notes Index