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Constitutional Political Economy
Journal Prestige (SJR): 0.252  Citation Impact (citeScore): 1 Number of Followers: 10  Hybrid journal (It can contain Open Access articles)ISSN (Print) 1572-9966 - ISSN (Online) 1043-4062 Published by Springer-Verlag  [2468 journals]
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- Election campaign finance bans and corruption: effectiveness across
parliamentary and presidential democracies-
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Abstract: Abstract Using data on a large sample of nations, this research studies the effects of campaign finance reforms on corruption, including bans on contributions by trade unions and corporations. The focus on campaign finance bans in presidential versus parliamentary democracies is a unique aspect. We find that, while bans on campaign donations to political parties and candidates by trade unions are effective in reducing corruption, their efficacy varies across presidential and parliamentary democracies. Specifically, bans on campaign contributions to political candidates and parties reduce corruption in presidential democracies, but they are ineffective in parliamentary democracies. Campaign contribution bans on corporations are largely ineffective. When a broader measure of institutional quality/enforcement is considered, its effectiveness dominates the effects of individual bans. Some of these findings are unique and suggest that policymakers considering combating corruption should take into account the form of democracy, the type of campaign finance ban, and the nation’s overall institutional quality.
PubDate: 2024-08-19
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- The Italian Constitutional Court and recentralization along the pendulum
of regionalism-
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Abstract: Abstract This paper employs a quantitative analysis of the disputes between central and regional government concerning the role of the Italian Constitutional Court, focusing on the context of decentralization initiated during the late 1990s. The econometric evidence demonstrates a significant decrease in favourable outcomes for regional governments following the process of recentralization, which was commenced by central government in 2011 in response to a major financial crisis. The results of this study support the perspective of a centralistic attitude of the courts in litigation concerning subnational governments and provide fresh insights into the role of the courts in the relationship between recentralization and major economic crises.
PubDate: 2024-08-03
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- Non-compliance as a determinant of constitutional change' A
comparative study-
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Abstract: Abstract It has often been claimed that if constitutions are not complied with, they will be changed. Because an ineffective constitutional contract is a bad contract, a lack of enforcement should induce constitutional reform. This paper empirically tests this conjecture based on a dataset of 170 countries from 1950 to 2018. The results indicate that the size of the de jure/de facto gap has no effect on the likelihood of constitutional change as such. However, after differentiating between amendments and replacements as distinct modes of constitutional reform, the results imply that non-compliance robustly increases the probability of constitutional replacement only. This relationship is primarily driven by an implementation gap regarding political and civil rights. Expected moderating effects of interpersonal trust and civil society organizations as catalysts for successful civil reform movements cannot be empirically supported. Overall, this has important consequences for the writers of future constitutions. If reformers desire longevity for their new constitutional framework, they must be aware that utopian promises may backfire by provoking a quick replacement of their rules.
PubDate: 2024-07-25
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- Constitutional artisans: James Buchanan and Vincent Ostrom on artifactual
man, the constitutional attitude, and the political economy of
constitutional design-
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Abstract: Abstract This paper examines the relationship between the work of James Buchanan and Vincent Ostrom. It adds to existing work by providing a comprehensive analysis of Buchanan’s and Ostrom’s changing views about how the ‘logical foundations of constitutional democracy’ should be conceptualised. The paper traces how in the 1960s and 1970s Ostrom took inspiration from the rational choice analysis of constitutional democracy in Buchanan and Tullock’s The Calculus of Consent, explaining how it shaped his reading of key texts in political theory and his analysis of public administration. It then discusses how Buchanan subsequently drew on Ostrom’s notion of artifactual man in developing his understanding of the ‘constitutional attitude’ necessary for individuals to engage in institutional design. It then explores how, from the mid-to-late 1990s, Ostrom became increasingly critical of Buchanan’s reliance on rational choice theory for his analysis of constitutional decision-making, identifying this as a key difference between their views.
PubDate: 2024-07-04
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- A majority rule philosophy for instant runoff voting
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Abstract: Abstract We present the core support criterion, a voting criterion satisfied by Instant Runoff Voting (IRV) that is analogous to the Condorcet criterion but reflective of a different majority rule philosophy. Condorcet methods can be thought of as conducting elections between each pair of candidates, counting all ballots to determine the winner of each pair-election. IRV can also be thought of as conducting elections between all pairs of candidates but for each pair-election only counting ballots from voters who do not prefer another major candidate (as determined self-consistently from the IRV social ranking) to the two candidates in contention. The appropriateness of including all ballots or a subset of ballots for a pair-election, depends on whether the society deems the entire or a selected ballot set in compliance with freedom of association, which implies freedom of non-association, for a given pair election. Arguments based on freedom of association rely on more information about an electorate than can be learned from ranked ballots alone. We present a freedom-of-association based argument to explain why IRV may be preferable to Condorcet in some circumstances, including the 2022 Alaska special congressional election and the 2009 Burlington Vermont mayoral election, based on the political context of those elections.
PubDate: 2024-06-19
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- Corruption in the MENA region - beyond uprisings
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PubDate: 2024-06-01
DOI: 10.1007/s10602-023-09410-3
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- Much ado about nothing: voting in sixteenth-century Republic of Genoa
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Abstract: Abstract When the constitution of the Republic of Genoa was rewritten in 1528, the traditional distinction between nobili and popolari was abolished and the now unified ruling class was organised into 28 groups called alberghi, which were granted equal political representation by an elaborate and bizarre voting mechanism. Using data on the composition of the Genoese nobility in 1528, we simulate the rounds of voting, nominations, and sortition of the electoral protocol to reveal how they determined the allocation of power. Our analysis shows that the constitutional reform could not succeed in bringing concord to the nobility, as the system was heavily biased towards the popolari (later renamed nobili nuovi), who could gain control over all key magistracies. We also show that the use of the alberghi for office allocation made the system less favourable to the nobili nuovi, but only marginally so. These results help explain the persistence of political instability in Genoa after the 1528 reform, and they shed light on the voting system reforms that followed.
PubDate: 2024-06-01
DOI: 10.1007/s10602-023-09414-z
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- Publication trends in political economy scholarship 2011–2020
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Abstract: Abstract Political economy occupies a unique place at the intersection of economics and political science, being an essential part of both disciplines, as well as an area that offers special insight into issues of continuing importance in public finance and policy. This article uses journal publications to rank institutions by research productivity in political economy. An incidental byproduct is a ranking of individual scholars. Ranking methodology is developed based on the established literature. Implications for the future evolution of political economy as an interdisciplinary field are suggested and discussed..
PubDate: 2024-06-01
DOI: 10.1007/s10602-023-09405-0
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- How the structure of legal authority affects political inequality
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Abstract: Abstract In the process of both European and American state development, legal institutions developed from many separate venues with overlapping jurisdictions to a hierarchical structure with authority concentrated in the lawmaking institutions of the state. This paper investigates the effects of concentrating authority in an institution whose decisions in a current conflict also bind other (subordinate) institutions deciding future conflicts. To do so, I present a simple formalization of this dimension of legal authority and use a formal model to analyze the effects of varying this dimension on competition among groups in society. The structure of legal authority is formalized as a probability that outcomes of group conflict in the current round determine outcomes in future rounds. In the model, concentrating legal authority increases incentives for competing groups to invest in political organization. In turn, this increases political inequality: As all groups invest more effort, groups with a resource advantage are better able to make use of their advantage. This paper contributes to our understanding of state development as well as ways in which the legal authority of the state structures contemporary politics.
PubDate: 2024-06-01
DOI: 10.1007/s10602-023-09412-1
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- Ballooning bureaucracy' Stylized facts of growing administration in
Swedish higher education-
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Abstract: Abstract All organizations need to allocate labor to production and administration. In many cases—particularly within the public sector—the optimal allocation is far from obvious. Indeed, vocal concerns have been raised about the administrative burden in several public services, not least in education. We investigate this issue using detailed registry data on all employees at Swedish universities and colleges from 2005 to 2019 and document three stylized facts. First, the group of highly educated administrators has grown rapidly, almost by a factor of seven compared with teachers and researchers. Second, the number of less-educated administrators has stayed flat. Third, the time that teachers and researchers spend on administrative tasks has been roughly constant over time. This indicates that resources have been diverted from teaching and research and raises fears of excessive administrative growth in Swedish higher education.
PubDate: 2024-06-01
DOI: 10.1007/s10602-023-09408-x
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- Checkmate: What was a King's worth in nineteenth-century Latin
America'-
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Abstract: Abstract I study the exogenous shock of Napoleon's invasion of the Iberian Peninsula in 1807. I argue that this event triggered different chains of events in Latin America. On the one hand, the Empire of Brazil remained under monarchical rule thanks to the exile of the royal court to Portugal's most significant colony. The continuity of the monarchical system provided legitimacy and political stability, thus minimizing violence in Brazil. On the other hand, Napoleon's capture and removal of the Spanish King created a vacuum of power resolved through violent secession and wars. I estimate the effects of removing the Spanish King using fatalities data from conflicts and applying difference-in-differences. I find that Continental Spanish America suffered 7.01 times more fatalities than its counterfactual. In addition, the Empire of Brazil was able to transfer the gains from relative peace to positive economic outcomes by outperforming Continental Spanish America in height, population growth, and income per capita.
PubDate: 2024-06-01
DOI: 10.1007/s10602-023-09413-0
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- From one crisis to another: the European central bank’s role from the
great recession to the Ukraine war-
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Abstract: Abstract The paper examines the changing role of the European Central Bank over the last 15 years and holds that the ECB has gone through a process of learning by doing, relying on earlier crisis experiences in forming its response to successive crises. This learning process has enabled it to sustain the euro countries against various exogenous shocks both within the power of its mandate and beyond it, implementing novel reforms. We argue, in fact, that crises stimulated institutional innovations such as the introduction of Eurozone banking supervision and the European Banking Union. The latter was a particularly ground-breaking idea, not contemplated by the Treaties, and addressed to exceptional endogenous dynamics. During the last two emergencies, triggered by the pandemic and the war, the ECB seems finally to have learned how to manage crises via a synergic use of available tools.
PubDate: 2024-05-31
DOI: 10.1007/s10602-024-09441-4
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- The United States fiscal constitution since the congressional budget
impoundment and control act-
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Abstract: Abstract Despite both chambers of the United States Congress passing budgetary rules to limit deficits and public debts, the deficit and, as a result, public debt, have increased dramatically. Most political economy literature has attributed these phenomena to the tragedy of the fiscal commons or political budget cycles. In contrast, this paper attributes these phenomena to a change in the fiscal constitution—specifically, the Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act (CBICA) of 1974. Prior to the passage of the CBIA, the fiscal constitution was such that the Executive Branch led the federal budgeting process. The Executive Branch leading the budgetary process effectively established a constraint on Congress’ propensity to use deficit and public debt finance. The passage of CBICA, however, established a new fiscal constitution that removed this constraint. The CBICA provided Congress with the lead over the budgeting process. This new fiscal constitution established by the CBICA caused an increase in deficits and public debt—despite budgetary rules aiming to stop such increases. Budgetary historical narratives are provided to support the theory.
PubDate: 2024-05-18
DOI: 10.1007/s10602-024-09439-y
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- Surveillance capitalism and the surveillance state: a comparative
institutional analysis-
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Abstract: Abstract What is the connection between mass surveillance and institutions of individual agency, freedom, and self-governance' Recent literature on “surveillance capitalism” argues that, over the past two decades, the capitalist Big Tech companies have commodified personal data for profit. This commodification goes beyond gathering information to improve the products provided by the collecting organization directly and entails using data to predict what people will do, the sale of that data, and its use to modify the behaviors of unknowing consumers. According to critics, this erodes individual dignity and freedom while also threatening democracy. This paper offers an alternative framing of surveillance and data collection based on comparative institutional analysis. While data collection and attempts at persuasion are present in private and government settings, the welfare effects vary due to institutional differences. We leverage the comparative institutional framework to analyze the differences between private data collection (“surveillance capitalism”) and government data collection (the “surveillance state”). Our analysis sheds light on how data collection in the private, for-profit sector has different welfare consequences from those in the surveillance state.
PubDate: 2024-05-17
DOI: 10.1007/s10602-024-09438-z
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- Border militarization and domestic institutions
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Abstract: Abstract The objective of this paper is to examine the impact of border policies and the increased militarization of border control practices on the expansion of police powers, the erosion of constitutional constraints and on other institutional spillovers. In recent decades, the Border Patrol has been integrated with the broader national security state as part of the war on drugs and the war on terror. This has entailed the acquisition of military hardware, the incorporation of organizational structures and training originally developed in the military, and increased interaction with the military, intelligence agencies, and defense contractors. The Border Patrol has frequently lent their equipment, personnel, and powers to domestic policing that has only a tangential relationship with border security. Border militarization therefore contributes to expansions in the scope of police powers and the erosion of constitutional constraints. This process undermines functional polycentricity, and thereby alters the incentives and knowledge of political decision-makers.
PubDate: 2024-05-17
DOI: 10.1007/s10602-024-09440-5
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- Political conflict, political polarization, and constitutional compliance
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Abstract: Abstract While the economic approach to constitutions highlights their contribution to resolving conflict, recent work on the de jure–de facto distinction in relation to various constitutional rules suggests that political conflict and polarization could play a role in explaining the size and evolution of the gap between constitution text and constitutional practice. In this paper, we are interested in the relationship between the degree of conflict in the political arena within the state, captured by the polarization of the political landscape, as well as the underlying political polarization in society, and compliance of government actors with the country’s constitution. Based on a number of theoretical arguments, we provide an empirical investigation for ca. 170 countries in the period 1975–2020, using the new Comparative Constitutional Compliance Database. Our results suggest that constitutional non-compliance is associated with more intense political polarization in society, but it does not seem to be correlated with polarization of the political landscape.
PubDate: 2024-04-20
DOI: 10.1007/s10602-024-09434-3
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- Dred Scott and Gettysburg in Tullock’s constitutional mythology and
Civil War memory-
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Abstract: Abstract Between 1965 and 1988, Gordon Tullock dramatically altered his view of the infamous Dred Scott v. Sandford decision of 1857 (Dred Scott v. Sandford. (1857). 60 U.S. 393.). In 1965, Tullock maintained the orthodox view that Dred Scott was incorrectly decided and justifiably reversed by the bloodshed of the Civil War. By the 1980s, Tullock changed his view, asserting instead that Dred Scott correctly interpreted a pro-slavery and racist Constitution. He maintained his earlier views on the emancipationist purpose of the Civil War in reversing Dred Scott. This paper explores Tullock’s evolving understanding of the Dred Scott decision, the Civil War, and the Battle of Gettysburg through the interpretive lenses of constitutional mythology and Civil War memory.
PubDate: 2024-04-08
DOI: 10.1007/s10602-024-09436-1
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- Public reason, democracy, and the ideal two-tier social choice model of
politics-
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Abstract: Abstract This article develops an account of political legitimacy based on the articulation of a social choice theoretic framework with the idea of public reason. I pursue two related goals. First, I characterize in detail what I call the Ideal Two-Tier Social Choice Model of Politics in conjunction with the idea of public reason. Second, I explore the implications of this model, when it is assumed that decision rules are among the constitutive features of the social alternatives on which individuals have preferences. The choice of the decision rule cannot be made independently of considerations regarding the likelihood that individuals will vote based on political judgments that are not publicly justified. The result is an account of political legitimacy according to which only “elitist” decision rules are amenable to public justification. Some of them are plainly compatible with liberal democracies as they currently exist. Others are however more naturally associated with the concept of epistocracy.
PubDate: 2024-04-05
DOI: 10.1007/s10602-024-09437-0
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- The Economy of Classical Athens. Organization, Institutions and Society by
Emmanouil, Marios, L. Economou-
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PubDate: 2024-03-04
DOI: 10.1007/s10602-024-09435-2
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- U.S. Antitrust Policy in the Age of Amazon, Google, Microsoft, Apple,
Netflix and Facebook-
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Abstract: Abstract Sweeping changes have disrupted society courtesy of the Information Revolution, presenting great opportunities in radically transformed economic markets but also great challenges in adapting to new and different forms of organization. Antitrust laws and other elements of competition policy are being re-examined. Specifically, the House Judiciary Committee conducted hearings in 2020 in which it asked key questions about the pattern of development in U.S. markets and options for policy reform. This paper, answering such queries, finds strong evidence for the view that, relative to practical alternatives that include E.U.-style regulation, digital markets in the U.S. appear robust, generating considerable innovation that produces pro-consumer outcomes. The global Internet is dominated by U.S.-developed technologies and business models discovered and deployed in a process of competitive rivalry. Even given imperfect rules and regulations, U.S. markets have contributed strongly to economic advances embraced around the world.
PubDate: 2024-03-01
DOI: 10.1007/s10602-022-09391-9
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