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…

France: Forces Shaping Centralization and Decentralization in Environmental Policymaking

This book examines how different countries define and address environmental issues, specifically in relation to intergovernmental relations: the creation of institutions, the assignment of powers, and the success of alternative solutions. It also investigates whether a systemic view of the environment has influenced the policy-making process. The broad perspective adopted includes a detailed analysis of seventeen countries in six continents by scholars from a range of disciplines – economics, political science, environmental science and law – thus producing novel material that moves away from the conventional treatment of decentralisation and the environment in economic literature.

Constitutional rules and competitive politics: their effects on secessionism

Albert Breton and Pierre Salmon argue that the effects of constitutiona l rules depend on the nature of political competition and on some meta-rules that contain procedures regulating the application and the modification of constitutiona l rules. They outline two models of competition - electoral competition and compound government competition - and describe the nature of the transactions between the parties involved in the two corresponding settings. In both, the transactions are over constitutional rules and ordinary goods and services, all of which are arguments in the utility functions of citizens. To make the discussion more concrete, the paper focuses on the demand for political auton…

The Competitive State

External effects of domestic regulations: comparing internal and international barriers to trade

Abstract In a world in which barriers to trade at all levels—international and internal—are mostly a by-product of the implementation by governments of different regulatory policies to deal with “domestic” or “local” problems such as environmental degradation, health, and labor standards, the article purports to show how the mechanisms that are set in motion by the operation of competition among the governments inhabiting the different jurisdictional tiers of federal countries lead to outcomes that are different from those generated by the ‘agreed-upon’ rules that govern the relations of national governments with each other in matters of international trade.

Compliance in Decentralized Environmental Governance

Environmental policy, focusing on the control of pollution and on over-exploitation, easily overlooks the extensive range of interconnections between economic activities and natural systems. In this timely book, a number of specialists examine how crucial aspects of complex environmental problems and policy can be dealt with in decentralized governmental systems.

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 …

Are discriminatory procurement policies motivated by protectionism ?

When purchasing goods and services, governments often discriminate in favour of domestic suppliers. It is widely assumed that such behaviour is motivated by protectionism. Although this interpretation is sometimes valid, it is also puzzling. After reviewing some of the puzzles, the paper proposes an alternative explanation of preferential procurement based on the assumption that governmental buyers want to purchase goods and services at minimum cost, but must do this in a context in which, because of the presence of unverifiable services, contracts are necessarily incomplete. The paper argues that preferential purchasing can guarantee the efficient delivery of these unverifiable services.

Nationalism and Rationality

The Economics of Transparency in Politics

Introduction, p. 1-8

Preferences and Democracy