IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/kap/copoec/v7y1996i4p267-279.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

A directly democratic and Federal Europe

Author

Listed:
  • Bruno Frey

Abstract

This paper endeavors to take up the neglected aspects of federalism and direct democracy. It emphasizes the mutual dependence of the two for reaching the goals of efficiency and trust. Direct democracy is seen to preserve federalism, but even more importantly, federalism is taken to enable and to preserve effective direct democracy. Empirical evidence is adduced showing in particular that direct democracy leads to higher efficiency in the sense of lowering transaction costs. A proposal for a novel combination of federalism and direct democracy—which is called FOCJ (the acronym for “Functional Overlapping Competing Jurisdictions”)—is suggested for Europe. Copyright Kluwer Academic Publishers 1996

Suggested Citation

  • Bruno Frey, 1996. "A directly democratic and Federal Europe," Constitutional Political Economy, Springer, vol. 7(4), pages 267-279, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:kap:copoec:v:7:y:1996:i:4:p:267-279
    DOI: 10.1007/BF00119267
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1007/BF00119267
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/BF00119267?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
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Pommerehne, Werner W., 1978. "Institutional approaches to public expenditure : Empirical evidence from Swiss municipalities," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 9(2), pages 255-280, April.
    2. Erich Weede, 1993. "The Impact of Interstate Conflict on Revolutionary Change and Individual Freedom," Kyklos, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 46(4), pages 473-495, November.
    3. Casella, Alessandra & Frey, Bruno, 1992. "Federalism and clubs : Towards an economic theory of overlapping political jurisdictions," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 36(2-3), pages 639-646, April.
    4. Nelson, Michael A, 1987. "Searching for Leviathan: Comment and Extension," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 77(1), pages 198-204, March.
    5. Olson, Mancur, Jr, 1969. "The Principle of "Fiscal Equivalence": The Division of Responsibilities among Different Levels of Government," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 59(2), pages 479-487, May.
    6. Anthony Downs, 1957. "An Economic Theory of Political Action in a Democracy," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 65(2), pages 135-135.
    7. Frey, Bruno S, 1994. "Direct Democracy: Politico-economic Lessons from Swiss Experience," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 84(2), pages 338-342, May.
    8. Steven Kelman, 1992. "Adversary and cooperationist institutions for conflict resolution in public policymaking," Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 11(2), pages 178-206.
    9. Forbes, Kevin F & Zampelli, Ernest M, 1989. "Is Leviathan a Mythical Beast?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 79(3), pages 568-577, June.
    10. repec:bla:kyklos:v:50:y:1997:i:4:p:507-38 is not listed on IDEAS
    11. Wilson, James Q., 1993. "The Moral Sense," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 87(1), pages 1-11, March.
    12. Matsusaka, John G, 1995. "Fiscal Effects of the Voter Initiative: Evidence from the Last 30 Years," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 103(3), pages 587-623, June.
    13. Lüder Gerken (ed.), 1995. "Competition among Institutions," Palgrave Macmillan Books, Palgrave Macmillan, number 978-1-349-24262-7, December.
    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. Jean-Michel Josselin & Alain Marciano, 2007. "How the court made a federation of the EU," The Review of International Organizations, Springer, vol. 2(1), pages 59-75, March.
    2. Simon Hug, 2009. "Some thoughts about referendums, representative democracy, and separation of powers," Constitutional Political Economy, Springer, vol. 20(3), pages 251-266, September.
    3. Kyriacou, Andreas P., 2000. "An Ethnically Based Federal and Bicameral System: The case of Cyprus," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 20(2), pages 251-268, June.
    4. Bruno S. Frey & Armin Steuernagel & Jonas Friedrich, 2018. "Future European Alliance - Europe as a Flexible Democracy," CESifo Working Paper Series 7270, CESifo.
    5. Gemma Mateo González, 2006. "Domestic Politics and Referendums on the Constitutional Treaty," EUI-RSCAS Working Papers 32, European University Institute (EUI), Robert Schuman Centre of Advanced Studies (RSCAS).

    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. Bruno S. Frey & Alois Stutzer, "undated". "The Role of Direct Democracy and Federalism in Local Power," IEW - Working Papers 209, Institute for Empirical Research in Economics - University of Zurich.
    2. Bruno S. Frey, 2001. "A Utopia? Government Without Territorial Monopoly," Journal of Institutional and Theoretical Economics (JITE), Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen, vol. 157(1), pages 162-175, March.
    3. Frey, Bruno S. & Eichenberger, Reiner, 1996. "FOCJ: Competitive governments for Europe," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 16(3), pages 315-327, September.
    4. Schaltegger, Christoph A & Kuttel, Dominique, 2002. "Exit, Voice, and Mimicking Behavior: Evidence from Swiss Cantons," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 113(1-2), pages 1-23, October.
    5. Bruno S. Frey & Alois Stutzer, "undated". "Direct Democracy: Designing a Living Constitution," IEW - Working Papers 167, Institute for Empirical Research in Economics - University of Zurich.
    6. Frey, Bruno S., 2004. "Direct Democracy for a Living Constitution," Freiburg Discussion Papers on Constitutional Economics 04/5, Walter Eucken Institut e.V..
    7. Wohlgemuth, Michael & Sideras, Jörn, 2004. "Globalisability of Universalisability? How to apply the Generality Principle and Constitutionalism internationally," Freiburg Discussion Papers on Constitutional Economics 04/7, Walter Eucken Institut e.V..
    8. Gebhard Kirchgassner, 2002. "The effects of fiscal institutions on public finance: a survey of the empirical evidence," Chapters, in: Stanley L. Winer & Hirofumi Shibata (ed.), Political Economy and Public Finance, chapter 9, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    9. Galletta, Sergio & Jametti, Mario, 2015. "How to tame two Leviathans? Revisiting the effect of direct democracy on local public expenditure in a federation," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 39(C), pages 82-93.
    10. Stadelmann, David & Portmann, Marco & Eichenberger, Reiner, 2013. "Quantifying parliamentary representation of constituents’ preferences with quasi-experimental data," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 41(1), pages 170-180.
    11. Frey, Bruno S & Stutzer, Alois, 2000. "Happiness, Economy and Institutions," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 110(466), pages 918-938, October.
    12. Fritz Breuss & Markus Eller, 2004. "The Optimal Decentralisation of Government Activity: Normative Recommendations for the European Constitution," Constitutional Political Economy, Springer, vol. 15(1), pages 27-76, March.
    13. Bruno S. Frey, "undated". "Direct Democracy for Transition Countries," IEW - Working Papers 165, Institute for Empirical Research in Economics - University of Zurich.
    14. Lars P. Feld & John G. Matsusaka, 2000. "Budget Referendums and Government Spending: Evidence from Swiss," CESifo Working Paper Series 323, CESifo.
    15. Feld, Lars P. & Matsusaka, John G., 2003. "Budget referendums and government spending: evidence from Swiss cantons," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 87(12), pages 2703-2724, December.
    16. Bruno S. Frey & Reiner Eichenberger, 2000. "A Proposal for a Flexible Europe," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 23(10), pages 1323-1334, October.
    17. Lars P. Feld & Gebhard Kirchgässner & Christoph A. Schaltegger, 2010. "Decentralized Taxation and the Size of Government: Evidence from Swiss State and Local Governments," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 77(1), pages 27-48, July.
    18. John Bradbury & W. Crain, 2005. "Legislative district configurations and fiscal policy in American States," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 125(3), pages 385-407, December.
    19. Bruno S. Frey & Stephan Rothlin, 2015. "Catholic Orders as Efficient Institutions," CREMA Working Paper Series 2015-12, Center for Research in Economics, Management and the Arts (CREMA).
    20. Feld, Lars P. & Kirchgassner, Gebhard, 2000. "Direct democracy, political culture, and the outcome of economic policy: a report on the Swiss experience," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 16(2), pages 287-306, June.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    D7; H1; H7; PO;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D7 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making
    • H1 - Public Economics - - Structure and Scope of Government
    • H7 - Public Economics - - State and Local Government; Intergovernmental Relations

    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:kap:copoec:v:7:y:1996:i:4:p:267-279. 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: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    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.