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The political process focuses on the ways that people come together to engage in collective decision making in a variety of contexts. The central elements of the political process include: the formation of rules, the subsequent interactions that take place within those rules, and the evolution of rules over time.
Scholars working in the area of Virginia political economy—e.g., James Buchanan and Gordon Tullock—emphasize the importance of applying the tools of economics to non-market settings, including politics. Scholars in this tradition focus on both politics and economics to understand the formation of political rules—constitutional political economy—as well as the subsequent play within those rules—public choice. Scholars in the Bloomington School—most notably, Elinor and Vincent Ostrom—have emphasized three important aspects of the political process and political order. The first is the distinction between “rules in form” and “rules in use.” The rules in form refer to codified rules while the rules in use refer to the rules that people actually follow in their daily lives.
Together, these dynamics generate the political order. The chapters in this volume explore and engage the key thinkers and ideas of the Virginia and Bloomington schools of political economy. The diversity in topics and approaches will make the volume of interest to readers in a variety of fields, including economics, entrepreneurship, history, political science, and public policy.
The political process focuses on the ways that people come together to engage in collective decision making in a variety of contexts. The central elements of the political process include: the formation of rules, the subsequent interactions that take place within those rules, and the evolution of rules over time.
Scholars working in the area of Virginia political economy—e.g., James Buchanan and Gordon Tullock—emphasize the importance of applying the tools of economics to non-market settings, including politics. Scholars in this tradition focus on both politics and economics to understand the formation of political rules—constitutional political economy—as well as the subsequent play within those rules—public choice. Scholars in the Bloomington School—most notably, Elinor and Vincent Ostrom—have emphasized three important aspects of the political process and political order. The first is the distinction between “rules in form” and “rules in use.” The rules in form refer to codified rules while the rules in use refer to the rules that people actually follow in their daily lives.
Together, these dynamics generate the political order. The chapters in this volume explore and engage the key thinkers and ideas of the Virginia and Bloomington schools of political economy. The diversity in topics and approaches will make the volume of interest to readers in a variety of fields, including economics, entrepreneurship, history, political science, and public policy.
Introduction, Donald J. Boudreaux, Christopher J. Coyne, Bobbi
Herzberg
Part I – Interdisciplinary Foundations
1. A Smithian Critique of James M. Buchanan’s Constitutional
Contractarianism, Malte Dold / 2. Towards a More “Tocquevillian”
Social Science: Family, Gender, Loyalty and Virtue in Modern
Democratic Associationalism, Sarah Jane Wilford / 3. Coping with
Complexity: A Theory of Hayekian Interventionism, Alexander
Schaefer / 4. The Entanglement of Public Bureaucratic Institutions:
Their Interactions with Society, Culture, Politics, and the
Economy, Jan P. Vogler / 5. The Conception of Taxation: The
Romantic versus Realistic Point of View, Charles Delmotte
Part II – Interdisciplinary Applications
6. Warning Out, Settlement Laws, and Managing Poor-Relief CPRs in
the Tocquevillian Township, Bob Kaminski / 7. Polycentricity and
Transnational Environmental Governance: A Comparison of
Literatures, James Heilman / 8. Dispute Avoidance through
International Regulatory Cooperation: A Public Choice Approach, Inu
Manak / 9. The Role of Experts and Intellectuals in Designing the
Post-Conflict Iraqi Constitution, Jozef Andrew Kosc
About the Authors
Donald J. Boudreaux is a Senior Fellow with the F. A. Hayek Program
for Advanced Study in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics at the
Mercatus Center at George Mason University, a Mercatus Center Board
Member, and a professor of economics and former
economics-department chairman at George Mason University.
Christopher J. Coyne is the F. A. Harper Professor of Economics at
George Mason University and the Associate Director of the F. A.
Hayek Program for Advanced Study in Philosophy, Politics, and
Economics at the Mercatus Center.
Bobbi Herzberg is a Distinguished Senior Fellow in the F. A. Hayek
Program in Advanced Study in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics at
the Mercatus Center at George Mason University.
"Interdisciplinarity" has become a noise, rather than an analytic
concept. What a pleasure it is to see a real interdisciplinary
effort, and on an important set of topics. Interdisciplinary work
is when a scholar who has mastered an approach applies it in a new
and interesting way. This book contains a number of genuinely
important chapters, and all the chapters are worth reading. The
reason the work is important is that no one approach can explain
how institutions begin, survive, or change. But this one book shows
these questions can be answered, and in ways that are interesting
and fun to read.
*Michael C. Munger, Director of PPE Program, Duke University*
The public choice tradition began two generations ago, set in
motion by such scholars as James Buchanan, Gordon Tullock, and
Vincent Ostrom. While public choice has clearly ossified through
maturation, these nine essays by freshly-minted scholars point the
way toward a possible reinvigoration of public choice by
incorporating new multidisciplinary insights into the study of a
society’s political order.
*Richard E. Wagner, Harris Professor of Economics, George Mason
University*
Interdisciplinary Studies of the Political Order integrates
important insights from the Austrian, Bloomington, and Virginia
Political Economy schools of thought. The young scholars, whose
work is collected in this volume, push our understanding of both
the interrelated foundations of these schools of thought and how to
apply the insights to a variety of contemporary issues.
*Benjamin Powell, Director of the Free Market Institute, Texas Tech
University*
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