Pub Date : 2019-02-11DOI: 10.1093/OXFORDHB/9780190469771.013.20
Georg Vanberg
Courts with the power of constitutional review have become a central, and often powerful, institution in democratic politics. At the same time, the influence of courts is often seen to be in tension with democratic governance and popular sovereignty—a tension identified with the “countermajoritarian difficulty” by legal scholars. This chapter considers constitutional courts through the lens of public-choice theory from a normative and a positive perspective. First, I demonstrate that a public-choice perspective resolves the apparent tension between judicial review and popular sovereignty. Second, I offer a positive theory that conceives of judicial power as a consequence of the need to resolve derived problems of coordination in the (contested) application of constitutional norms to specific governmental actions. This perspective suggests that judges—like leaders more generally—exercise significant, but constrained, power.
{"title":"The Least Dangerous Branch?","authors":"Georg Vanberg","doi":"10.1093/OXFORDHB/9780190469771.013.20","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/OXFORDHB/9780190469771.013.20","url":null,"abstract":"Courts with the power of constitutional review have become a central, and often powerful, institution in democratic politics. At the same time, the influence of courts is often seen to be in tension with democratic governance and popular sovereignty—a tension identified with the “countermajoritarian difficulty” by legal scholars. This chapter considers constitutional courts through the lens of public-choice theory from a normative and a positive perspective. First, I demonstrate that a public-choice perspective resolves the apparent tension between judicial review and popular sovereignty. Second, I offer a positive theory that conceives of judicial power as a consequence of the need to resolve derived problems of coordination in the (contested) application of constitutional norms to specific governmental actions. This perspective suggests that judges—like leaders more generally—exercise significant, but constrained, power.","PeriodicalId":146256,"journal":{"name":"The Oxford Handbook of Public Choice, Volume 2","volume":"61 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-02-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"121068508","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2019-02-11DOI: 10.1007/978-0-387-75870-1_32
A. Schram
{"title":"Experimental Public Choice","authors":"A. Schram","doi":"10.1007/978-0-387-75870-1_32","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-75870-1_32","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":146256,"journal":{"name":"The Oxford Handbook of Public Choice, Volume 2","volume":"35 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-02-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"125056330","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2019-02-11DOI: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190469771.013.3
George Tridimas
The chapter explains the meaning of divided government and introduces the king-and-council template of governance characterizing territorial governments where responsibilities for choosing the policies of an organization are divided between a single person (“the king”) and a committee (the “council”) of more or less equal members, who make important decisions by voting. The chapter analyzes the advantages of this system to resolve problems of information, power sharing, and succession. Next, it presents historical examples of the reallocation of power between the king and the council, including the emergence of modern democracy, and demonstrates the theoretical intuition behind those constitutional exchanges. The chapter also examines the ability to define political property rights and how constitutional courts assist in this respect, and shows why, contrary to doctrines of the separation of powers, control of policymaking is in practice shared among different branches of government.
{"title":"Divided Government","authors":"George Tridimas","doi":"10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190469771.013.3","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190469771.013.3","url":null,"abstract":"The chapter explains the meaning of divided government and introduces the king-and-council template of governance characterizing territorial governments where responsibilities for choosing the policies of an organization are divided between a single person (“the king”) and a committee (the “council”) of more or less equal members, who make important decisions by voting. The chapter analyzes the advantages of this system to resolve problems of information, power sharing, and succession. Next, it presents historical examples of the reallocation of power between the king and the council, including the emergence of modern democracy, and demonstrates the theoretical intuition behind those constitutional exchanges. The chapter also examines the ability to define political property rights and how constitutional courts assist in this respect, and shows why, contrary to doctrines of the separation of powers, control of policymaking is in practice shared among different branches of government.","PeriodicalId":146256,"journal":{"name":"The Oxford Handbook of Public Choice, Volume 2","volume":"11 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-02-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"128511417","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2019-02-11DOI: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190469771.013.4
Cecilia Testa
In modern democracies, the legislative power is vested in parliaments with diverse organizational structures. Bicameral legislatures, requiring concurrent deliberation by two bodies, are present in about one-third of the world’s countries. Bicameralism typically serves the important purpose of accommodating the representation of heterogeneous interests from distinct social cleavages or geographic entities, but it is also associated with advantages such as greater stability of policies, increased accountability, and better quality of legislation. These benefits, however, only arise under specific circumstances, and the greater procedural complexity brought about by two chambers is not without costs. Disagreement between the two chambers often leads to costly legislative gridlock. Bicameralism can also open the door to pressure groups advancing their requests for favorable legislation when the chambers do not have time to carefully consider its consequences. The constitutional choice of bicameralism and its optimality ultimately rest on the subtle balance between its costs and benefits.
{"title":"Bicameralism","authors":"Cecilia Testa","doi":"10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190469771.013.4","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190469771.013.4","url":null,"abstract":"In modern democracies, the legislative power is vested in parliaments with diverse organizational structures. Bicameral legislatures, requiring concurrent deliberation by two bodies, are present in about one-third of the world’s countries. Bicameralism typically serves the important purpose of accommodating the representation of heterogeneous interests from distinct social cleavages or geographic entities, but it is also associated with advantages such as greater stability of policies, increased accountability, and better quality of legislation. These benefits, however, only arise under specific circumstances, and the greater procedural complexity brought about by two chambers is not without costs. Disagreement between the two chambers often leads to costly legislative gridlock. Bicameralism can also open the door to pressure groups advancing their requests for favorable legislation when the chambers do not have time to carefully consider its consequences. The constitutional choice of bicameralism and its optimality ultimately rest on the subtle balance between its costs and benefits.","PeriodicalId":146256,"journal":{"name":"The Oxford Handbook of Public Choice, Volume 2","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-02-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"126483114","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2019-02-11DOI: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190469771.013.10
Běla Plechanovová, M. Hosli, Anatolij Plechanov
This chapter studies voting and representation in the European Union, specifically the Council of the EU and the European Parliament, over time. The authors assess the linkages between decision-making and democratic legitimacy, and then focus on potential alternatives to decision-making in the Council. They discuss development of the double-majority rule in view of aspects such as democratic representation, efficiency, and equitability and then offer analyses for different scenarios for the EU’s future, assuming different membership constellations and changes in member-states’ population sizes. They offer new calculations on voting power, the institution’s capacity to act, and equitability. Equitability, also with new rules incorporated into the Lisbon Treaty and effective as of November 2014, still deviates from the ideal value and with this, might induce the need for a rule change again in the future.
{"title":"Choosing Voting Rules in the European Union","authors":"Běla Plechanovová, M. Hosli, Anatolij Plechanov","doi":"10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190469771.013.10","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190469771.013.10","url":null,"abstract":"This chapter studies voting and representation in the European Union, specifically the Council of the EU and the European Parliament, over time. The authors assess the linkages between decision-making and democratic legitimacy, and then focus on potential alternatives to decision-making in the Council. They discuss development of the double-majority rule in view of aspects such as democratic representation, efficiency, and equitability and then offer analyses for different scenarios for the EU’s future, assuming different membership constellations and changes in member-states’ population sizes. They offer new calculations on voting power, the institution’s capacity to act, and equitability. Equitability, also with new rules incorporated into the Lisbon Treaty and effective as of November 2014, still deviates from the ideal value and with this, might induce the need for a rule change again in the future.","PeriodicalId":146256,"journal":{"name":"The Oxford Handbook of Public Choice, Volume 2","volume":"94 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-02-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"127564217","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2017-03-01DOI: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190469771.013.36
P. Salmon
Among many aspects to the question of whether democracy is exportable, this contribution focuses on the role of the people, understood not as a unitary actor but as a heterogeneous set: the citizens. The people matter, in a different way, both in the countries to which democracy might be exported and in the democratic countries in which the question is about promoting democracy elsewhere. The mechanisms or characteristics involved in the discussion include yardstick competition, differences among citizens in the intensity of their preferences, differences among autocracies regarding intrusion into private life, citizens’ assessments of future regime change, and responsiveness of elected incumbents to the views of minorities. The second part of the contribution explains why promotion of democracy is more likely to work through citizens’ concern with human rights abuses than with regime characteristics.
{"title":"Is Democracy Exportable?","authors":"P. Salmon","doi":"10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190469771.013.36","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190469771.013.36","url":null,"abstract":"Among many aspects to the question of whether democracy is exportable, this contribution focuses on the role of the people, understood not as a unitary actor but as a heterogeneous set: the citizens. The people matter, in a different way, both in the countries to which democracy might be exported and in the democratic countries in which the question is about promoting democracy elsewhere. The mechanisms or characteristics involved in the discussion include yardstick competition, differences among citizens in the intensity of their preferences, differences among autocracies regarding intrusion into private life, citizens’ assessments of future regime change, and responsiveness of elected incumbents to the views of minorities. The second part of the contribution explains why promotion of democracy is more likely to work through citizens’ concern with human rights abuses than with regime characteristics.","PeriodicalId":146256,"journal":{"name":"The Oxford Handbook of Public Choice, Volume 2","volume":"36 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2017-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"132817851","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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