Abstract
A tradition in political economy holds that constitutions should be designed under the assumption that politicians are knaves. A criticism of this position says that a constitution so designed will cause political actors to behave worse than they otherwise would. Designing a constitution for knaves creates knaves. I critique this argument in the current paper. I advance two claims. First, all constitutions create knaves, because the activity of politics itself creates knaves. Second, knavish constitutions better cultivate virtue when compared to constitutions that lack knavish constraints and guardrails. Put together, the two arguments imply the criticism has it exactly backwards: if you want virtuous politicians, design constitutions under the assumption that they are knaves.
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Notes
One might think it is inconsistent with Mill, who worries about politicians being turned into a “mere mouthpiece” of their constituents. I disagree. To begin, note that voters have both preferences over policy outcomes as well as beliefs about which policies best realize these outcomes (Prat, 2005). Voters, of course, may be mistaken in their beliefs [e.g., they believe immigration restrictions foster economic growth when most economists believe the opposite (Clemens, 2011)]. One way of interpreting Mill’s concern is that he is worried about politicians deviating from their constituents’ outcome preferences by catering to their false beliefs about what policies best serve these preferences. Contemporary political economists call this pandering (Maskin & Tirole, 2004). On this interpretation of Mill’s concern, knavish politicians are deviating from their principals’ outcome interests by pandering to their false policy beliefs.
For criticism of this empirical work, see Esteves-Sorenson and Broce (2022).
See also Bowles (2016, pp. 86–89).
See also Pettit (1998, p. 75).
See also Le Grand (2013, p. 53); Bowles (2016, pp. 97–103).
More specifically, instead of bicameralism, separations of powers, checks and balances, and other commonly embraced knavish constraints, Frey recommends giving citizens the power to reverse legislative decisions via referenda and force the passage of laws opposed by their representatives via initiatives. A constitution with these constraints on the legislature and no others is one that affords significant legislative discretion.
Pettit recognizes that these gentle, ethics-priming constraints might not always work. If they do not, then more significant sanctions and constraints can be applied, but only in an escalating fashion, after the gentler methods fail (Pettit, 1998, pp. 85–87). Pettit does not give a clear example of how this would work.
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Acknowledgements
The author would like to thank Jeremy Reid, the editors of Public Choice, and two anonymous reviewers for helpful feedback on earlier drafts of the manuscript
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Kogelmann, B. In defense of knavish constitutions. Public Choice 196, 141–156 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11127-023-01065-w
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11127-023-01065-w
Keywords
- Constitutional political economy
- Constitutional design
- Homo economicus
- Crowding out
- Moral economy
- Knave