The Limits of Consensual Decision*

Douglas W. Rae

American Political Science Review, 1975, vol. 69, issue 4, 1270-1294

Abstract: This essay criticizes the ideal of consensual decision as it appears in liberal political theory. A historical survey begins with Locke's view of consent, its criticism and extension by 19th century figures such as Godwin, Calhoun, and Mill, its reappearance in the guise of economic efficiency within the works of Wicksell or Buchanan and Tullock and as moral autonomy in Wolff's Defense of Anarchy. The paper offers a structural account of political decision making in which vulnerability to the authority of others seems inescapable and in which neither unanimity nor a universal right of consent is possible. On this telling, consensual decision is logically unattainable and misdirects constitutional theory.

Date: 1975
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