Democracy and constitutionalism are both central to the Western political tradition. And yet, constitutional restrictions are often perceived to be in tension with democratic commitments. I argue that the constitutional political economy approach developed by Nobel Laureate James Buchanan resolves the tension between constitutionalism and the values of democratic governance by shifting the analysis from a system-attributes perspective that focuses on the particular institutional properties of a political order to a system-legitimacy perspective that focuses on the manner in which political institutions gain democratic legitimacy. In so doing, the approach reveals that constitutionalism can be understood as a natural expression of democratic values.
CITATION STYLE
Vanberg, G. (2018). Constitutional political economy, democratic theory and institutional design. Public Choice, 177(3–4), 199–216. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11127-018-0570-0
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