IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/ecopol/v15y2003i2p181-191.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Politics as Tragedy in Several Acts

Author

Listed:
  • James M. Buchanan

Abstract

James Madison noted that government would be unnecessary if men were angels. The shortfall of value between the idealized anarchy of a society of angels and the society of men as they are measures the tragedy of politics, which emerges at several levels. Resources are required for the maintenance of order, and those agents who are guardians of order will not, themselves, be angels. Further, rents promised to such agents will attract efforts at capture. Reductions in the measure of the tragedy remain possible through both shifts in ethical standards, at all levels, and shifts in institutional‐constitutional structures.

Suggested Citation

  • James M. Buchanan, 2003. "Politics as Tragedy in Several Acts," Economics and Politics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 15(2), pages 181-191, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:ecopol:v:15:y:2003:i:2:p:181-191
    DOI: 10.1111/1468-0343.00121
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-0343.00121
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/1468-0343.00121?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. repec:cup:cbooks:9780521233293 is not listed on IDEAS
    2. repec:cup:cbooks:9780521027922 is not listed on IDEAS
    3. repec:cup:cbooks:9780521031325 is not listed on IDEAS
    4. Olson, Mancur, 1993. "Dictatorship, Democracy, and Development," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 87(3), pages 567-576, September.
    5. repec:cup:cbooks:9780521621878 is not listed on IDEAS
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Kane, Edward J., 2011. "Unmet Duties in Managing Financial Safety Nets," Business Ethics Quarterly, Cambridge University Press, vol. 21(1), pages 1-22, January.
    2. Stringham, Edward Peter, 2011. "Embracing morals in economics: The role of internal moral constraints in a market economy," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 78(1-2), pages 98-109, April.
    3. Scharfenkamp, Katrin, 2013. "Composition effects of the German Federal Government on the average top income tax burden," Discussion Papers of the Institute for Organisational Economics 2/2013, University of Münster, Institute for Organisational Economics.
    4. Daniel Horgos & Klaus W. Zimmermann, 2010. "It Takes Two to Tango: Lobbies and the Political Business Cycle," Kyklos, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 63(3), pages 383-399, August.
    5. Scharfenkamp Katrin, 2016. "It’s About Connections – How the Economic Network of the German Federal Government Affects the Top Earners’ Average Income Tax Rate," Journal of Economics and Statistics (Jahrbuecher fuer Nationaloekonomie und Statistik), De Gruyter, vol. 236(4), pages 427-453, August.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Iamsiraroj, Sasi, 2016. "The foreign direct investment–economic growth nexus," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 42(C), pages 116-133.
    2. Scott Gehlbach & Konstantin Sonin & Ekaterina Zhuravskaya, 2010. "Businessman Candidates," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 54(3), pages 718-736, July.
    3. Patrick Legros & Andrew F. Newman & Eugenio Proto, 2014. "Smithian Growth through Creative Organization," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 96(5), pages 796-811, December.
    4. Sobel, Andrew C., 2002. "State institutions, risk, and lending in global capital markets," International Business Review, Elsevier, vol. 11(6), pages 725-752, December.
    5. Jian-Guang Shen, 2002. "Democracy and growth: An alternative empirical approach," Development and Comp Systems 0212002, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    6. Mayshar, Joram & Moav, Omer & Neeman, Zvika, 2011. "Transparency, Appropriability and the Early State," CEPR Discussion Papers 8548, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    7. Maria Kravtsova & Aleksey Oshchepkov, 2019. "Market And Network Corruption," HSE Working papers WP BRP 209/EC/2019, National Research University Higher School of Economics.
    8. Apolte Thomas, 2018. "Sezessionsklauseln: Ein Instrument zur Förderung von Freiheit und Wohlstand?," ORDO. Jahrbuch für die Ordnung von Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft, De Gruyter, vol. 69(1), pages 366-382, July.
    9. Fernando del Río, 2021. "The impact of rent seeking on social infrastructure and productivity," Review of Development Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 25(3), pages 1741-1760, August.
    10. Angulo Amaya, Maria Camila, 2024. "Criminal governance and public resources: The case of paramilitaries and health care provision in Colombia," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 179(C).
    11. Richard Langlois, 2013. "The Institutional Revolution: A review essay," The Review of Austrian Economics, Springer;Society for the Development of Austrian Economics, vol. 26(4), pages 383-395, December.
    12. Andrea Asoni, 2008. "Protection Of Property Rights And Growth As Political Equilibria," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 22(5), pages 953-987, December.
    13. Adamson, Jordan, 2020. "Political institutions, resources, and war: Theory and evidence from ancient Rome," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 76(C).
    14. Tilman Altenburg, 2011. "Can Industrial Policy Work under Neopatrimonial Rule?," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2011-041, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    15. Williams, Stephen F., 2016. "Words, words, words: The remarkable perseverance of Magna Carta," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 47(S), pages 67-71.
    16. Janssen, Marco A. & Rollins, Nathan D., 2012. "Evolution of cooperation in asymmetric commons dilemmas," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 81(1), pages 220-229.
    17. Mwangi S. Kimenyi, 2006. "The Demand for Power Diffusion: A Case Study of the 2005 Constitutional Referendum Voting in Kenya," Working papers 2006-11, University of Connecticut, Department of Economics.
    18. Georgy Egorov & Konstantin Sonin, 2011. "Dictators And Their Viziers: Endogenizing The Loyalty–Competence Trade‐Off," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 9(5), pages 903-930, October.
    19. Christopher Kilby & Christopher Kline, 2012. "To Invest or Insure? A Comment on Wright (2008)," Villanova School of Business Department of Economics and Statistics Working Paper Series 21, Villanova School of Business Department of Economics and Statistics.
    20. Ryan H. Murphy & Colin O’Reilly, 2023. "Freedom through taxation: the effect of fiscal capacity on the rule of law," European Journal of Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 56(1), pages 69-90, August.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:ecopol:v:15:y:2003:i:2:p:181-191. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/journal.asp?ref=0954-1985 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.