Democracy has moved to the centre of systemic reflections on political economy, gaining a position which used to be occupied by the debate about socialism and capitalism. Certitudes about democracy have been replaced by an awareness of the elusiveness and fluidity of democratic institutions and of the multiplicity of dimensions involved. This is a book which reflects this intellectual situation. It consists of a collection of essays by well-known economists and political scientists from both North America and Europe on the nature of democracy, on the conditions for democracy to be stable, and on the relationship between democracy and important economic issues such as the functioning of the market economy, economic growth, income distribution and social policies.

The purpose of this book is to formulate economic models of the advantages and costs of transparency in various areas of public sector activity and to assess what level of obfuscation in politics is rational. The chapters are arranged in four parts. Part 1 is concerned with the manifestations of transparency and obfuscation in domestic democratic settings whilst Part 2 deals with the same realities but in an international context. Part 3 looks at corruption and Part 4 considers some of the implications of transparency and obfuscation for the working of governments and the formulation of public policies.

The purpose of this book is to formulate economic models of the advantages and costs of transparency in various areas of public sector activity and to assess what level of obfuscation in politics is rational. The chapters are arranged in four parts. Part 1 is concerned with the manifestations of transparency and obfuscation in domestic democratic settings whilst Part 2 deals with the same realities but in an international context. Part 3 looks at corruption and Part 4 considers some of the implications of transparency and obfuscation for the working of governments and the formulation of public policies.

The essays in this volume, written by well-known economists and other social scientists from North America, Europe and Australia, share to an unusual degree a common concern with the competitive mechanisms that underlie collective decisions and with the way they are embedded in institutional settings. This gives the book a unitary inspiration whose value is clear from the understanding and insights its chapters provide on important theoretical and practical issues such as the social dimension and impact of trust, the management of information in bureaucratic settings, the role of political parties in constitutional evolution, inter-level rivalry and reassignments of powers in federal and unitary systems of government, the impact of ethnicity and nationalism on federal institutions or arrangements, and the response of governments and overarching institutions of globalization. The essays were written in honour of Albert Breton, a pioneer in this field of investigation.

Democracy is widely accepted today, perhaps as never before, as the most suitable form of government. But what is democracy, and does it always produce good government? Democracy is often associated with the existence of competitive elections. But theory and experience suggest that these are not sufficient for democracy to function reasonably well. In this book, which was originally published in 2003, a number of experts from North America and Europe use a rational choice approach to understand the 'foundations' of democracy - what makes democracy successful, and why. In doing so, they consider diverse problems of democratic governance such as the importance of morals or virtue in political life, negative advertising, the role of social capital and civil society in sustaining democracy, the constitutional and cultural prerequisites of democracy, and the interaction of democracy and markets.

Political extremism is widely considered to be the product of irrational behavior. The distinguishing feature of this collection by well-known economists and political scientists from North America, Europe and Australia is to propose a variety of explanations which all insist on the rationality of extremism. Contributors use variants of this approach to shed light on subjects such as the conditions under which democratic parties take extremist positions, the relationship between extremism and conformism, the strategies adopted by revolutionary movements, and the reasons why extremism often leads to violence. The authors identify four core issues in the study of the phenomenon: the nature (definition) of extremism and its origins in both democratic and authoritarian settings, the capacity of democratic political systems to accommodate extremist positions, the strategies (civil disobedience, assassination, lynching) chosen by extremist groups, and the circumstances under which extremism becomes a threat to democracy.

Why is nationalism so widespread? How does the phenomenon arise? How can its negative consequences be controlled? This collection of essays by economists, sociologists, and political scientists from North America and Europe tries to answer these questions at the forefront of political discussion. The work differs from others in that the authors' responses are not based on avowed ideological perspectives, but are rather drawn from rational-choice analysis, the foundation of social science. Although each of the contributors to Nationalism and Rationality takes a distinctive point of view, the collection as a whole focuses on three subjects - the origins of nationalism, whether and why it promotes good or evil, and how to deal with its occasional destructive consequences. Readers will find provocative insights into nationalism through the contributors' diverse diagnoses and prescriptions.

The essays in this volume, written by well-known economists and other social scientists from North America, Europe and Australia, share to an unusual degree a common concern with the competitive mechanisms that underlie collective decisions and with the way they are embedded in institutional settings. This gives the book a unitary inspiration whose value is clear from the understanding and insights its chapters provide on important theoretical and practical issues such as the social dimension and impact of trust, the management of information in bureaucratic settings, the role of political parties in constitutional evolution, inter-level rivalry and reassignments of powers in federal and unitary systems of government, the impact of ethnicity and nationalism on federal institutions or arrangements, and the response of governments and overarching institutions of globalization. The essays were written in honour of Albert Breton, a pioneer in this field of investigation.

Why is nationalism so widespread today? How does the phenomenon arise? How can its negative consequences be controlled? This collection of essays by economists, sociologists and political scientists from North America and Europe tries to answer these questions at the forefront of contemporary political discussion. The work differs from others in that the authors' responses are not based on avowed ideological perspectives but are rather drawn from rational-choice analysis, the foundation of social science. Although each of the contributers to Nationalism and Rationality takes a distinctive point of view, the collection, as a whole, focuses on three subjects - the origins of nationalism, whether and why it promotes good or evil, and how to deal with its occasional destructive consequences. Readers should find provocative insights into nationalism through the contributors' diverse diagnoses and prescriptions.

Democracy has moved to the centre of systemic reflections on political economy, gaining a position which used to be occupied by the debate about socialism and capitalism. Certitudes about democracy have been replaced by an awareness of the elusiveness and fluidity of democratic institutions and of the multiplicity of dimensions involved. This is a book which reflects this intellectual situation. It consists of a collection of essays by well-known economists and political scientists from both North America and Europe on the nature of democracy, on the conditions for democracy to be stable, and on the relationship between democracy and important economic issues such as the functioning of the market economy, economic growth, income distribution and social policies.

The distinguishing feature of this collection by well-known economists and political scientists from North America, Europe, and Australia is to propose a variety of explanations that all insist on the rationality of extremism. The authors identify four core issues in the study of extremism: the nature (definition) of extremism and its origins in both democratic and authoritarian settings, the capacity of democratic political systems to accommodate extremist positions, the strategies (civil disobedience, assassination, lynching) chosen by extremist groups, and the circumstances under which extremism becomes a threat to democracy.