 When is ordinary law-making tolerated?Enrico Colombatto European Journal of Comparative Economics, 2014, vol. 11, issue 1, 79-92 Abstract: Institutions matter: they affect individual action, influence cooperation, and are crucial in making the difference between wealth and poverty, growth and stagnation. Yet, the explanatory power of modern institutional theorizing has not been exceedingly satisfactory. In contrast with the mainstream perspective, this paper suggests a theory of institutional dynamics based on the notions of justice, liberty, and tolerance. In particular, we put forward a stylized model of society, within which individuals are characterized by their ideological traits. We discuss under which conditions tensions emerge, and when demand for institutional change builds up. We conclude that today's democracies are inherently stable, and that this stability is explained by the socialist notion of liberty that characterizes the vast majority of the population of a typical modern society. Keywords: Legitimacy; tolerance; justice; institutions (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:liu:liucej:v:11:y:2014:i:1:p:79-92 Access Statistics for this article European Journal of Comparative Economics is currently edited by Matteo Migheli, Giovanni Ramello, Koji Domon, Peter Grajzl, David M. Kemme, Marcello Signorelli and Richard Watt More articles in European Journal of Comparative Economics from Cattaneo University (LIUC) Contact information at EDIRC. |
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