IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/jothpo/v11y1999i2p233-260.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Suppressing Shays' Rebellion

Author

Listed:
  • Michael J. G. Cain
  • Keith L. Dougherty

Abstract

Under the Articles of Confederation, the American states frequently failed to pay their requisitions to the national government, sapping it of revenue. This paper explains the failure to raise revenue from the states by analyzing the system of requisitions in the context of Shays' Rebellion. Shays' Rebellion is of particular interest because it illustrates the clear conflict between common state interests and constitutional obligations on the one hand and the incentives to withhold contributions on the other. Our analysis shows that states had sufficient resources to fund a national army but did not contribute these resources to the nation. With adequate revenues within the states, the flaws of the Articles of Confederation were clearly revealed. The Articles failed to prevent free-riding among states, contributed to the disharmony of the union, and ultimately prevented Congress from accomplishing its constitutional tasks. These problems were not unique to the Articles. They result from voluntary requisition systems in general.

Suggested Citation

  • Michael J. G. Cain & Keith L. Dougherty, 1999. "Suppressing Shays' Rebellion," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 11(2), pages 233-260, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:jothpo:v:11:y:1999:i:2:p:233-260
    DOI: 10.1177/0951692899011002005
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0951692899011002005
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/0951692899011002005?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. Bendor, Jonathan & Swistak, Piotr, 1997. "The Evolutionary Stability of Cooperation," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 91(2), pages 290-307, June.
    2. Dougherty, Keith L & Cain, Michael J G, 1997. "Marginal Cost Sharing and the Articles of Confederation," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 90(1-4), pages 201-213, March.
    3. Rapoport, Amnon, 1985. "Provision of Public Goods and the MCS Experimental Paradigm," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 79(1), pages 148-155, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Philip Streich & Jack S. Levy, 2007. "Time Horizons, Discounting, and Intertemporal Choice," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 51(2), pages 199-226, April.
    2. John T. Scholz & Cheng‐Lung Wang, 2009. "Learning to Cooperate: Learning Networks and the Problem of Altruism," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 53(3), pages 572-587, July.
    3. Alexander Field, 2008. "Why multilevel selection matters," Journal of Bioeconomics, Springer, vol. 10(3), pages 203-238, December.
    4. Edward Cartwright & Anna Stepanova, 2017. "Efficiency in a forced contribution threshold public good game," International Journal of Game Theory, Springer;Game Theory Society, vol. 46(4), pages 1163-1191, November.
    5. Herbert Simon, 2000. "Bounded rationality in social science: Today and tomorrow," Mind & Society: Cognitive Studies in Economics and Social Sciences, Springer;Fondazione Rosselli, vol. 1(1), pages 25-39, March.
    6. Craig D. Parks & Lorne G. Hulbert, 1995. "High And Low Trusters' Responses To Fear in a Payoff Matrix," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 39(4), pages 718-730, December.
    7. Bohnet, Iris & Frey, Bruno S. & Huck, Steffen, 2001. "More Order with Less Law: On Contract Enforcement, Trust, and Crowding," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 95(1), pages 131-144, March.
    8. Asen Ivanov & Douglas D. Davis & Korenok Oleg, 2011. "A Simple Approach for Organizing Behavior and Explaining Cooperation in Repeated Games," Working Papers 1101, VCU School of Business, Department of Economics.
    9. García, Julián & van Veelen, Matthijs, 2016. "In and out of equilibrium I: Evolution of strategies in repeated games with discounting," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 161(C), pages 161-189.
    10. Ramzi Suleiman, 2022. "Economic Harmony—A Rational Theory of Fairness and Cooperation in Strategic Interactions," Games, MDPI, vol. 13(3), pages 1-21, April.
    11. Maria Abou Chakra & Arne Traulsen, 2012. "Evolutionary Dynamics of Strategic Behavior in a Collective-Risk Dilemma," PLOS Computational Biology, Public Library of Science, vol. 8(8), pages 1-7, August.
    12. Jenna Bednar, 2006. "Is Full Compliance Possible?," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 18(3), pages 347-375, July.
    13. Masiliūnas, Aidas, 2017. "Overcoming coordination failure in a critical mass game: Strategic motives and action disclosure," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 139(C), pages 214-251.
    14. Pedro Dal Bo & Guillaume R. Frochette, 2011. "The Evolution of Cooperation in Infinitely Repeated Games: Experimental Evidence," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 101(1), pages 411-429, February.
    15. Mark I. Lichbach, 1994. "Rethinking Rationality and Rebellion," Rationality and Society, , vol. 6(1), pages 8-39, January.
    16. J. P. Bayer & V. A. Vasilyeva & I. A. Vetrenko, 2021. "Game Modeling of the Political Space: Analysis of Foreign Literature," Administrative Consulting, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration. North-West Institute of Management., issue 9.
    17. Tim Johnson & Oleg Smirnov, 2012. "An alternative mechanism through which economic inequality facilitates collective action: Wealth disparities as a sign of cooperativeness," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 24(4), pages 461-484, October.
    18. Federica Alberti & Anna Cartwright & Edward Cartwright, 2021. "Predicting Efficiency in Threshold Public Good Games: A Learning Direction Theory Approach," Working Papers in Economics & Finance 2021-01, University of Portsmouth, Portsmouth Business School, Economics and Finance Subject Group.
    19. Federica Alberti & Edward J. Cartwright & Anna Stepanova, 2012. "Threshold public good games and impulse balance theory," Jena Economics Research Papers 2011-062, Friedrich-Schiller-University Jena.
    20. Kalle Pajunen, 2006. "Living in Agreement with a Contract: The Management of Moral and Viable Firm–Stakeholder Relationships," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 68(3), pages 243-258, October.

    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:sae:jothpo:v:11:y:1999:i:2:p:233-260. 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: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    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.