Choice Democracy

Olivier Ledoit

No 38, ECON - Working Papers from Department of Economics - University of Zurich

Abstract: Democracy is defined by two core tenets: voice and pluralism. Within these constraints, a wide variety of regime types can be designed. We show that the only new, untested form of democracy is when every citizen is governed by the political party of his/her choice. Multiple full-fledged governments would coexist in the same national territory at the same time, each one sovereign only over the people who chose to vote for it - hence the name: "Choice Democracy". Choice Democracy can be regarded as pure polyarchy, the broadest form of political competition, and a robust mechanism for disciplining government agencies. We argue that this system makes democracy more stable by reducing the risk of revolutionary and financial crises. We develop a theory for the optimal number of governments per countries, where the answer is determined by a trade-off between cooperation and competition. We also provide evidence indicating that Choice Democracy would be viable in the real world.

Keywords: Democracy; choice; polyarchy; stability; competition; effciency (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: H11 H12 H41 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2011-10
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cdm and nep-pol
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:zur:econwp:038

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