|Peter Boettke|
That is the title of the fantastic book that has just been published by Oxford University Press written by my colleague Paul Dragos Aligica. Paul studied with the Ostroms at Indiana University prior to joining our research group here at GMU. Paul has a deep knowledge of philosophy, politics and economics, and that knowledge is on full display in this work.
The critical question in political economy is how do groups of individuals find the rules that enable them to live better together; to find those institutional arrangements that encourage peaceful social cooperation and productive specialization among diverse populations. The problem of diversity isn't always treated seriously by political economists. Consider the following from the locus classicus of public choice, The Calculus of Consent: “Therefore, our analysis of the constitution-making process has little relevance for a society that is characterized by a sharp cleavage of the population into distinguishable social classes or separate racial, religious, or ethnic groupings sufficient to encourage the formation of predictable political coalitions and in which one of these coalitions has a clearly advantageous position at the constitutional stage.” (1999 [1962], 81)
From my perspective Buchanan and Tullock are underselling their contribution by steering clear of questions of how social cooperation can emerge out of social conflict through the adoption of various rules of social interaction. That task was more or less left to Vincent and Elinor Ostrom and their work on polycentricity and constitution making from the bottom up. Institutional experimentation, and thus institutional diversity, must be recognized as individuals and groups grope for solutions to the puzzle of social conflict. Alexander Hamilton asked in Federalist #1, whether constitutions are a consequence of accident and force, or choice and reflection. Both the Virgina School and the Bloomington School examine analytically and empirically the constitutional arrangements that emerge from choice and reflection so that rules that enable individuals to live better together are agreed upon and enforced. But the vast institutional diversity that exists throughout the world that enable groups (small and large) to realize the gains from social cooperation was primarily the research task of the Bloomington School and their institutional analysis of development.
In this work, Algicia not only provides a thorough discussion of the Ostroms' work, but also provides a deep, original, and creative examination of institutional feedback, policy design, and democratic society. Aligica treats seriously the issues of heterogeneity and institutional diversity. Rather than evading, Aligica focuses on the constitution-making process among populations with sharp cleavages and threatened by social conflict, and explores how groups stumble and sometimes succeed in finding the institutional framework that turns diversity into advantages rather than the cause for disruption. In doing so, Aligica marries Hayekian insights on knowledge with Buchananeque concern with the constitutional level of analysis, and the Ostromean analysis of polycentricism and institutional diversity. It is a brilliant analysis of the comparative institutional analysis of democratic governance.
Comments