IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/kap/pubcho/v33y1978i3p45-63.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Constitutional guarantees and the distribution of power and wealth

Author

Listed:
  • Jürgen Backhaus

Abstract

The process of the interpretation of the constitution has been shown to be politically neutral in the sense that there is no inherent political bias with respect to differing political viewpoints. The process, on the other hand, stabilizes whatever diverse impulses it receives. There is no evidence of a (second) supposition of reconciliation of political viewpoints (according to the supposition of reconciliation of legal interpretations) underlying the process, so unbalanced impulses (issued from whatever political direction) will be worked out. The imbalance will be stabilized as a new balance; imbalances are stabilized as such, not attenuated nor counterbalanced by the process itself. Any counterbalance must come as the consequence of a new external impulse. SIC is nevertheless no barrier to political and social change. There will be difficulties arising out of SIC concerning short-run policies extreme enough to induce constitutional controversy. SIC can, however, be employed as a device for the long-run implementation of far-reaching structural change. SIC is a delicate political instrument; it will only be useful as an operational device for the implementation of the policy as a specific political party or interest group if there is no opposing influence exerted on SIC by another party or group. Parties or groups unable to secure enough votes in the political process should try to gain access to SIC in order to pursue their political ends efficienctly. For those parties or groups insufficiently important to attract much public attention (and opposed strategies of extensive litigation), SIC is a useful device. Under a shield of public ignorance, For a related analysis, see Bartlett (1973). these groups can gain power and access to political decisions, thus exerting an influence much in excess of their importance and weight in a democratic process of public decision-making. Copyright Martinus Nijhoff Publishers b.v 1978

Suggested Citation

  • Jürgen Backhaus, 1978. "Constitutional guarantees and the distribution of power and wealth," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 33(3), pages 45-63, January.
  • Handle: RePEc:kap:pubcho:v:33:y:1978:i:3:p:45-63
    DOI: 10.1007/BF00154683
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1007/BF00154683
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/BF00154683?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. Goldberg, Victor P., 1976. "On Positive Theories of Redistribution," Working Papers 229115, University of California, Davis, Department of Economics.
    2. repec:ags:ucdavw:225715 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. Francesco Parisi, 1998. "The Constitutional and Political Economy of Trade Protection," European Journal of Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 5(1), pages 67-79, January.
    2. Edward J. Mathis & Charles E. Zech, 1989. "The Median Voter Model Fails an Empirical Test: The Procedure, Useful in the Absence of a Better One, Is Not Valid for Multidimensional Issues," American Journal of Economics and Sociology, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 48(1), pages 79-87, January.
    3. Edward M. Miller, 1986. "Determinants of the Size of the Small Business Sector: They Are Labor Productivity, Wage Rates and Capital Intensity," American Journal of Economics and Sociology, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 45(4), pages 389-402, October.
    4. Edward J. Mathis & Charles E. Zech, 1986. "An Examination into the Relevance of the Median Voter Model: Empirical Evidence Offers Support for the Model and Certain Uses," American Journal of Economics and Sociology, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 45(4), pages 403-412, October.

    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. Backhaus, J.G., 1995. "An economic analysis of constitutional law," Research Memorandum 011, Maastricht University, Maastricht Research School of Economics of Technology and Organization (METEOR).

    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:kap:pubcho:v:33:y:1978:i:3:p:45-63. 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.