Social Choice and Southern Secession in the United States

Kelley Gary ()
Additional contact information
Kelley Gary: Department of Economics, Washington University in St. Louis, USA

Homo Oeconomicus, 2004, vol. 21, pages 355-372

Abstract: We have long known that collective decisions are determined not only by the underlying constellation of individual preferences, but also by the process – or rules and procedures – used to reach a decision. Outcomes may vary even while underlying individual preferences remain unchanged. This paper examines the in?uence of the various rules and procedures used to reach decisions on the matter of secession in the American South. I show that southern secession occurred, in part, because the decision processes were biased in favor of secession. By denying their respective electorates the opportunity to vote directly on the status quo of Union, by assiduously avoiding a collective “southern” solution, and by encouraging separate state secession in the states of the lower South, the most ardent secessionists prevailed where otherwise they may have failed.

Date: 2004

There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it.

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: http://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hom:homoec:v:21:y:2004:p:355-372

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Homo Oeconomicus from Institute of SocioEconomics
Contact information at EDIRC.
Series data maintained by Matthew Braham (). This e-mail address is bad, please contact .