Leviathan at Bay: Constitution versus Political Controls on Government

Daniel Sutter

Economic Inquiry, 1998, vol. 36, issue 4, 670-78

Abstract: The author integrates constitutional constraints in a model of electoral control of politicians. Two types of politicians compete for office: angels, who never misuse power, and knaves, who abuse delegated power. Political theory suggests that constitutional constraints and elections are substitutes; the author finds a more complicated relationship. Elections sometimes substitute for constraints, while constraints complement and strengthen electoral controls based on politicians' payoffs. Elections must work perfectly to generally allow constraints to be dispensed with. Knaves might self-select out of politics with constitutional constraints, which consequently appear inconsistent with the observed character of politicians. Copyright 1998 by Oxford University Press.

Date: 1998
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:oup:ecinqu:v:36:y:1998:i:4:p:670-78

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://academic.oup.com/journals

Access Statistics for this article

Economic Inquiry is currently edited by Preston McAfee

More articles in Economic Inquiry from Western Economic Association International Oxford University Press, Great Clarendon Street, Oxford OX2 6DP, UK. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Oxford University Press ().