Why a Constitution?

Hardin, Russell

doi:10.1017/cbo9781139507509.005

Cited by 77 publications

(68 citation statements)

References 16 publications

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“…Thus, "A constitution does not resolve a particular prisoners' dilemma interaction. It regulates a long term pattern of interaction" (Hardin 1989: IOI). Constitutions are not intended to solve a single problem that may not exist in the near future; they are formed instead to solve long-term problems and, regardless of the facts surrounding constitutional durability in other states, they are designed presumably to have long half-lives.…”

Section: Self-enforcing Constitutionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Constitutional stability

Ordeshook

1992

Constit Polit Econ

200

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Despite attempts to paper over the dispute, political scientists in the pluralist tra dition disagree sharply with public and social choice theorists about the importance of institutions and with William Riker in particular who argues in Liberalism against Pop ulism that the liberal institutions of indirect democracy ought to be preferred to those of populist democracy. This essay reconsiders this dispute in light of two ideas unavailable to Riker at the time. The first, offered by Russell Hardin, is that constitutions can more usefully be conceptualized as coordinating devices as opposed to social contracts. The importance of this idea is that it allows for a more theoretically satisfying view of the way that constitutions become self-enforcing. The second idea, which derives from the various applications of concepts such as the uncoveted set, argues that although institutions such as the direct election of president are subject to the usual inabilities that concern social choice theorists, those instabilities do not imply that "anything can happen" -instead, final outcomes will be constrained, where the severity of those constraints depend on institutional details. We maintain that these ideas strengthen Riker's argument about the importance of such constitutional devices as the separation of powers, bicameralism, the executive veto, and scheduled elections, as well as the view that federalism is an important component of the institutions that stabilize the American political system.We conclude with the proposition that the American Civil War should not be regarded as a constitutional failure, but rather as a success. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: You must first enable the government to controul the governed; and in the next place, oblige it to controul itself. Riker bases his analysis on the research of social choice theorists such as Arrow (1963), Plott (1967, Davis and Hinich (1966), McKelvey (1976), and Schofield (1978. This research reveals two things. First, coherence (in the form of a well-defined social preference order over feasible policy outcomes) in majoritarian processes without impediments to direct citizen control of policy requires a nearly-impossible-to-achieve balance of citizen preferences on salient issues, sufficient uniformity of tastes and perceptions such that preferences on all issues (potential or otherwise) can be mapped to a single "ideological" dimension, or the existence of a unique salient issue. Second, democratic procedures such as two candidate elections and committee voting are arbitrary in the sense that outcomes and the identities of winners and losers depend on procedural details, including the order with which election candidates announce their campaign platforms, the order with which alternatives are considered in a legislative voting agenda, the identities of persons who have access to an agenda, and the list of feasible policy alternatives.From these results Riker constructs the argument ...

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Section: Self-enforcing Constitutionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Constitutional stability

Ordeshook

1992

Constit Polit Econ

200

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“…What makes the sovereign generous is that his rule would be better than the alternative. Because he is, by Hobbes's definition, the de facto sovereign or, more generally, the strongest candidate for that role, he is the focal point for coordinated obedience, so the alternative to his rule is no rule (Hardin, 1989, generalizes this argument to all effective constitutions). And because he already enjoys considerable power, he can reciprocate cooperation by selective targeting: each new adherent gains some protection not enjoyed by holdouts.…”

Section: Surrender To a Leadermentioning

confidence: 99%

Power and Cooperation

Schwartz¹

2017

RES

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The pure realist picture of world politics combines the demand for power with the problem of cooperation. In a more up-to-date, less austere variant, power is no unqualified asset: a state can profit from a unilateral loss of power, all else equal. And mutual cooperation is often achievable, thanks in great measure to the shadow of the future. My newer, richer variant enlarges and combines those two features of anarchy: sometimes a loss of power by a single state not only is advantageous to that state but enhances mutual cooperation, and when that happens the motives to cooperate-which turn out to be quite varied-only have to work in a one-sided way.

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“…The definition stresses constitutional declarations because a constitution can create common expectations about the way the government should work (Hardin 1989). But declarations are not guarantees.…”

Section: Federalismmentioning

confidence: 99%

Federalism as a Public Good

Bednar

2005

Constit Polit Econ

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Abstract. This paper suggests that stabilizing federalism is like solving a public good provision problem. It reviews results in the public good provision literature that are relevant for federalism, and discusses the implications of these results for the institutional design of federalism. JEL classification: H110, H770, P160Key words: Intergovernmental relations, government performance, institutional designFederalism now reaches to all corners of the globe, yet in political science we still lack a basic understanding of how to design institutions to maximize the chances that a federation will be successful. We write federal constitutions without knowing what might best be included to maximize the possibility of peace and prosperity. We advocate adoption of the constitutional architecture of successful federations, a policy that will meet with diminishing success as federalism moves from the western developed world to cultures and contexts that are quite different. Some adopt federal constitutions despite our relative ignorance, such as Russia, Bosnia, South Africa, and Iraq. Others hesitate, lacking confidence in their ability to engineer a successful federation. For example, Afghanistan would have been a natural case for federation, given its regions' histories of political independence, but Afghani constitutional planners and their consultants rejected a federal solution, not knowing how to build a federation strong enough to resist the peripheralizing forces of aggressive, competitive provinces. And in Argentina, the federal government is pleading for another restructuring of its debt repayment scheme, despite being unable to find a remedy for the root cause of its fiscal misfortune: provinces who have little incentive to balance their books, despite the ill effects for the national economy.What makes a federation successful, robust? Is it historical accident, cultural influences, or the institutional elements in a constitution that affect its success? If institutions matter, have we fully explored their significance? In this paper I advocate a new approach to the study of federalism that describes federalism as a public good provision problem. The implication of this description is that we are able to enlist our understanding of how public good provision problems may be resolved to the design of federalism. However, these results must be modified to fit the particular challenges that federalism presents. This paper focuses on how a network of institutions, complementary in their functional capacity, makes federations productive. In so doing, the project departs from existing studies, which have focused on the effect of the existence of particular institutions-often considered in isolation-on the longevity of the federation or distributional aspects of it.

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Why a Constitution?

Cited by 77 publications

References 16 publications

Constitutional stability

Constitutional stability

Power and Cooperation

Federalism as a Public Good

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