Constitutions As Relational Contracts

Explaining Procedural Safeguards in Municipal Charters

Dados Bibliográficos

ID6295837
AutoresSteven M Maser (Willamette University, autor correspondente), M Maser
Ano1998
Volume8
Fascículo4
Páginas527-564
Data de publicação1998-10-01
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessNão
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoJournal of Public Administration Research and Theory (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 1053-1858 • E-ISSN: 1477-9803
EditoraOxford University Press (OUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1093/oxfordjournals.jpart.a024395
OpenAlexW2070559690
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas35
Referências citadas27

This article analyzes constitutions as relational contracts designed to facilitate long-term relationships. We use transaction resource theory to model the decisions involved in contracting. It explains how rational actors will resolve among themselves three distinct but intertwined problems of cooperation: coordination, division, and defection. The theory identifies conditions, such as increasing population size and heterogeneity, under which demand arises among the principal parties for third-party governance. The potential problems of cooperation in the relationship between the governors and the governed take the form of instability, unresponsiveness, and inefficiency, from which derives the demand for a constitution. The parties have an incentive to craft procedural safeguards—such as allocating authority across decision makers in government—as with an executive veto; varying electoral rules, as with district versus at-large elections; and providing for direct democracy, as with initiatives, referenda, and recalls. Factor analysis, applied to a sample of 145 municipal charters in 1970, discriminates among procedural safeguards consistent with their predicted purposes in mitigating the problems. Regression analysis reveals the interdependence of charter provisions and their increased likelihood under conditions where contextual factors exacerbate the problems

Business · Charter · Corporate governance · Economics · Government (linguistics · Incentive · Inefficiency · Microeconomics · Political science · Politics · Population · Public economics · Sociology · Transaction cost · Veto · American Constitutional Law and Politics · Law · Local Government Finance and Decentralization · Taxation and Compliance Studies · Finance