Self-Enforcing Consititutions: With an Application to Democratic Stability in America's First Century

Economic choice, political decision, and the problem of limits

“…And the "veil of ignorance," by definition, gives us no means of discovering whether the rules we choose under uncertainty will yield rules that are selfenforcing. This problem is at least as acute for nations as it is for small groups, as Weingast (2005) and the literature he reviews demonstrates.…”

Making executive politics mutually productive and fair

“…With some variations, this is the ''coordinationist'' account given by Heckathorn and Maser (1987), North and Weingast (1989), Moe (1990Moe ( , 2005, Hardin (1991Hardin ( , 1999, Elster (1995), Weingast (1997Weingast ( , 2005, and North et al (2009).…”

“…Citizens do not necessarily agree as to what the proper scope and structure of the executive office should be. As Weingast (2005) notes, ''no natural consensus exists about the nature of rights, either among political philosophers … or among citizens.'' Individuals tend to have a clearer conception of their narrow and shortrun interests, which are often in conflict with the narrow and short-run interests of others.…”

“…By ''convention,'' I mean a specific and focal set of behaviors that are mutual best responses to one another. 8 Office-seekers who are aware of the difficulty of forming or maintaining consensus can use the strategy of ''divide and rule'' to increase their chances of winning or retaining office by playing off one subset of citizens against the others (Weingast 1997(Weingast , 2005.…”

“…These questions are too seldom asked. In the realm most relevant to this paper-inter-temporal cooperation by office-holders-the questions are not asked by Buchanan (1993), Buchanan and Congleton (1998), Rodrik (2000), Dixit (2003), or Weingast (2005), all of whom consider a kind of inter-temporal cooperation that depends critically upon the players' levels of impatience and commitment-capability. 13 If levels of patience and commitment-capability are too low, then players do not have the luxury of facing complex, dynamic coordination problems.…”