Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-2brh9 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-29T00:42:35.675Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Core of the Constitution

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 August 2014

Thomas H. Hammond  and
Gary J. Miller
Thomas H. Hammond
Affiliation:
Michigan State University
Gary J. Miller
Affiliation:
Washington University
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

It is often argued that the United States Constitution was designed so as to create a stable political order. Yet in the literature on the formal theory of democracy, there has been very little examination of constitutional provisions for their stability-inducing properties. In this paper we demonstrate that bicameralism and the executive veto tend to create stability, that the legislative override of the executive veto tends to undermine this stability, and that the interaction of bicameralism and the executive veto is likely to produce stable outcomes despite the destabilizing impact of the veto override.

Type
Articles
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 81 , Issue 4 , December 1987 , pp. 1155 - 1174
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 1987

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Cohen, Linda. 1979. Cyclic Sets in Multidimensional Voting Models. Journal of Economic Theory 20:1–20.Google Scholar
Condorcet, Marquis de. 1785. Essai sur l'application de l'analyse a la probabilite des decisions rendues a la pluraliste des voix. Paris: De l'Imprimerie royale.Google Scholar
Cox, Gary W. 1980. Veto Groups and Stability in Voting Institutions. University of Texas, Austin. Typescript.Google Scholar
Cox, Gary W., and McKelvey, Richard D.. 1984. A Ham Sandwich Theorem for General Measures. Social Choice and Welfare 1:75–83.Google Scholar
Davis, Otto A., DeGroot, Morris H., and Hinich, Melvin J.. 1972. Social Preference Orderings and Majority Rule. Econometrica 40:147–57.Google Scholar
Greenberg, Joseph. 1979. Consistent Majority Rule over Compact Sets of Alternatives. Econometrica 47:627–36.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hamilton, Alexander, Madison, James, and Jay, John. [1787–1788] 1961. The Federalist Papers. Reprint. New York: New American Library.Google Scholar
Hammond, Thomas H., and Miller, Gary J.. 1987. The Core of the Constitution: Lemmas, Theorems, and Examples. Michigan State University. Typescript.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McGrath, Dennis R. 1983. James Madison and Social Choice Theory: The Possibility of Republicanism. Ph.D. diss., University of Maryland, College Park.Google Scholar
McKelvey, Richard D. 1976. Intransitivities in Multidimensional Voting Models and Some Implications for Agenda Control. Journal of Economic Theory 12:472–82.Google Scholar
McKelvey, Richard D. 1979. General Conditions for Global Intransitivities in Formal Voting Models. Econometrica 47:1085–1111.Google Scholar
Miller, Nicholas R. 1980. A New Solution Set for Tournaments and Majority Voting: Further Graph-Theoretical Approaches to the Theory of Voting. American Journal of Political Science 24:68–96.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schofield, Norman. 1978. Instability of Simple Dynamic Games. Review of Economic Studies 45:575–94.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shepsle, Kenneth A., and Weingast, Barry R.. 1984. Uncovered Sets and Sophisticated Voting Outcomes with Implications for Agenda Institutions. American Journal of Political Science 28:49–74.Google Scholar
Submit a response

Comments

No Comments have been published for this article.