Democracy Unchained: Contractualism, Individualism, and Independence in Buchanan’s Democratic Theory

John Thrasher ()
Additional contact information
John Thrasher: Chapman University

Homo Oeconomicus: Journal of Behavioral and Institutional Economics, 2019, vol. 36, issue 1, No 3, 25-40

Abstract: Abstract Contrary to the claims of some of his critics, James Buchanan was an ardent democrat. I argue that Buchanan’s conception of democratic governance organized by a contractually justified constitution is highly distinctive because of his commitment to a strong conception of individualism. For Buchanan, democracy is neither justified instrumentally—by the goods it generates—nor by reference to some antecedent conception of justice. Instead, democracy is the only political option for a society that takes individualism seriously. One implication of this view is that democracies can only be limited by the rules they collectively give themselves in the form of constitutions. I explicate this conception of democracy and address some of its implications, assumptions, and challenges.

Keywords: James Buchanan; Democracy; Contractualism; Liberalism (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: B3 B41 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s41412-019-00085-6 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:homoec:v:36:y:2019:i:1:d:10.1007_s41412-019-00085-6

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/economics/journal/41412

DOI: 10.1007/s41412-019-00085-6

Access Statistics for this article

Homo Oeconomicus: Journal of Behavioral and Institutional Economics is currently edited by M.J. Holler, M. Kocher and K.K. Sieberg

More articles in Homo Oeconomicus: Journal of Behavioral and Institutional Economics from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().