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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.
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.
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.
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