Rational Foundations of Democratic Politics

1. Introduction Albert Breton, Gianluigi Galeotti, Pierre Salmon and Ronald Wintrobe Part I. Some Problems with Democratic Institutions and Trends in Their Evolution: 2. Demobilization, demoralization and the loosening bonds of electoral politics Michael C. Munger 3. Turning 'citizens' into 'consumers': economic growth and the level of public discourse Stergios Skaperdas 4. Economic and cultural prerequisites for democracy Roger D. Congleton 5. Civil society and the contemporary social order Frederique Chaumont-Chancelier Part II. Morals in Politics: 6. When does altruism overcome the intransitivity of income redistribution? Donald Wittman 7. Democratic resilience and the necessity of virtu…

Political Extremism and Rationality

Political extremism is widely considered to be the product of irrational behavior. Originally published in 2002, the distinguishing feature of this collection by well-known economists and political scientists from North America, Europe and Australia is to propose a variety of explanations which all insist on the rationality of extremism. Contributors use variants of this approach to shed light on subjects such as the conditions under which democratic parties take extremist positions, the relationship between extremism and conformism, the strategies adopted by revolutionary movements, and the reasons why extremism often leads to violence. The authors identify four core issues in the study of…

Understanding Democracy: Economic and Political Perspectives

Democracy has moved to the centre of systemic reflections on political economy, gaining a position which used to be occupied by the debate about socialism and capitalism. Certitudes about democracy have been replaced by an awareness of the elusiveness and fluidity of democratic institutions and of the multiplicity of dimensions involved. This is a book which reflects this intellectual situation. It consists of a collection of essays by well-known economists and political scientists from both North America and Europe on the nature of democracy, on the conditions for democracy to be stable, and on the relationship between democracy and important economic issues such as the functioning of the …

Nationalism and Rationality

Competition and Structure: The Political Economy of Collective Decisions

The Economics of Transparency in Politics

Introduction, p. 1-8

Preferences and Democracy