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Contain the Wealthy and Patrol the Magistrates: Restoring Elite Accountability to Popular Government

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  • McCORMICK, JOHN P.

Abstract

Modern republics neglect to establish formal institutions that prevent wealthy citizens from exerting excessive political influence and they abandon extra-electoral techniques traditionally employed to keep office-holders accountable. Inspired by Guicciardini's and Machiavelli's reflections on the Roman, Venetian, and Florentine constitutions, this article highlights three forgotten practices that facilitate popular control of both economic and political elites: magistrate appointment procedures combining lottery and election, offices or assemblies excluding the wealthy from eligibility, and political trials enlisting the entire citizenry in prosecutions and appeals. I present a typology of regimes that evaluates the wealth containment potential of various magistrate selection methods, and propose a hypothetical reform supplying the U.S. Constitution with a “Tribunate” reminiscent of elite-accountability institutions in pre-eighteenth-century popular governments.

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  • McCORMICK, JOHN P., 2006. "Contain the Wealthy and Patrol the Magistrates: Restoring Elite Accountability to Popular Government," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 100(2), pages 147-163, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:cup:apsrev:v:100:y:2006:i:02:p:147-163_06
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    Cited by:

    1. Goodall, Amanda H. & Osterloh, Margit, 2015. "Women Have to Enter the Leadership Race to Win: Using Random Selection to Increase the Supply of Women into Senior Positions," IZA Discussion Papers 9331, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    2. Bruno S. Frey & Lasse Steiner, 2014. "God does not play dice, but people should: random selection in politics, science and society," ECON - Working Papers 144, Department of Economics - University of Zurich.
    3. Bruno S. Frey & Lasse Steiner, 2014. "Random Selection in Politics, Science and Society: Applications and Institutional Embeddedness," CREMA Working Paper Series 2014-09, Center for Research in Economics, Management and the Arts (CREMA).

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