IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/hoh/hohdip/321.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Leviathan Europa - Stärkung der Nationalstaaten und der EU durch konstitutionelle Schranken?

Author

Abstract

The uncontrolled centralization of competences on the European level is problematic insofar as it does not correspond to the citizens' preferences. Constitutional constraints can prove essential for the freedom and the welfare of EU citizens. Existing constraints like the subsidiarity principle, the Council's qualified-majority voting threshold, the checks and balances between different institutions, and the constitutional courts are not sufficient. Sunset competences, opting-out rights of the Member States, and the introduction of "Functional, Overlap-ping, and Competing Jurisdictions" could strengthen institutional competition within the EU in order to shape the Union's and Member States' policies more according to citizens' preferences.

Suggested Citation

  • Bodo Knoll & Andreas Koenig, 2010. "Leviathan Europa - Stärkung der Nationalstaaten und der EU durch konstitutionelle Schranken?," Diskussionspapiere aus dem Institut für Volkswirtschaftslehre der Universität Hohenheim 321/2010, Department of Economics, University of Hohenheim, Germany.
    • Handle: RePEc:hoh:hohdip:321
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.uni-hohenheim.de/RePEc/hoh/papers/321.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Roland Vaubel, 2009. "Constitutional courts as promoters of political centralization: lessons for the European Court of Justice," European Journal of Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 28(3), pages 203-222, December.
    2. Riker, William H. & Brams, Steven J., 1973. "The Paradox of Vote Trading," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 67(4), pages 1235-1247, December.
    3. Robert J. Mackay & Carolyn L. Weaver, 1983. "Commodity Bundling and Agenda Control in the Public Sector," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 98(4), pages 611-635.
    4. Bruno S. Frey & Reiner Eichenberger, 2000. "A Proposal for a Flexible Europe," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 23(10), pages 1323-1334, October.
    5. Patrick Bolton & Gérard Roland, 1997. "The Breakup of Nations: A Political Economy Analysis," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 112(4), pages 1057-1090.
    6. Dennis Mueller, 1999. "On Amending Constitutions," Constitutional Political Economy, Springer, vol. 10(4), pages 385-396, November.
    7. Gradstein, Mark, 2004. "Political Bargaining in a Federation: Buchanan meets Coase," CEPR Discussion Papers 4188, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    8. Thomas Romer & Howard Rosenthal, 1978. "Political resource allocation, controlled agendas, and the status quo," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 33(4), pages 27-43, December.
    9. Peter Kurrild‐Klitgaard, 2002. "Opting‐Out: the Constitutional Economics of Exit," American Journal of Economics and Sociology, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 61(1), pages 123-158, January.
    10. Gradstein, Mark, 2004. "Political bargaining in a federation: Buchanan meets Coase," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 48(5), pages 983-999, October.
    11. 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.
    12. Stefan Voigt, "undated". "Iudex Calculat: The ECJ's Quest for Power," German Working Papers in Law and Economics 2003-1-1066, Berkeley Electronic Press.
    13. Bordignon, Massimo & Brusco, Sandro, 2001. "Optimal secession rules," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 45(10), pages 1811-1834, December.
    14. Buchanan, James M & Faith, Roger L, 1987. "Secession and the Limits of Taxation: Toward a Theory of Internal Exit," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 77(5), pages 1023-1031, December.
    15. Mueller,Dennis C., 2003. "Public Choice III," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521894753, October.
    16. Landes, William M & Posner, Richard A, 1975. "The Independent Judiciary in an Interest-Group Perspective," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 18(3), pages 875-901, December.
    17. Peter Bernholz & Friedrich Schneider & Roland Vaubel & Frank Vibert, 2004. "An Alternative Constitutional Treaty for the European Union," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 118(3_4), pages 451-468, March.
    18. Peter Bernholz, 1973. "Logrolling, arrow paradox and cyclical majorities," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 15(1), pages 87-95, June.
    19. James Buchanan, 1996. "Europe as social reality," Constitutional Political Economy, Springer, vol. 7(4), pages 253-256, December.
    20. Marilyn R. Flowers, 1988. "Shared Tax Sources in a Leviathan Model of Federalism," Public Finance Review, , vol. 16(1), pages 67-77, January.
    21. Thomas Romer & Howard Rosenthal, 1979. "Bureaucrats Versus Voters: On the Political Economy of Resource Allocation by Direct Democracy," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 93(4), pages 563-587.
    22. Viktor J. Vanberg, 2008. "Can Competition Between Governments Enhance Democracy?," Chapters, in: Andreas Bergh & Rolf Höijer (ed.), Institutional Competition, chapter 5, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    23. Charles Blankart, 2007. "The European Union: confederation, federation or association of compound states?," Constitutional Political Economy, Springer, vol. 18(2), pages 99-106, June.
    24. Wittman, Donald, 1991. "Nations and States: Mergers and Acquisitions; Dissolutions and Divorce," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 81(2), pages 126-129, May.
    25. Tsebelis, George, 1994. "The Power of the European Parliament as a Conditional Agenda Setter," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 88(1), pages 128-142, March.
    26. 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.
    27. Stefan Voigt, 2003. "Towards ever more confusion? The Convention's proposal for a European constitution," Intereconomics: Review of European Economic Policy, Springer;ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics;Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS), vol. 38(4), pages 185-188, July.
    28. Peter Ordeshook, 1992. "Constitutional stability," Constitutional Political Economy, Springer, vol. 3(2), pages 137-175, March.
    29. Dennis Mueller, 2005. "Constitutional political economy in the European Union," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 124(1), pages 57-73, July.
    30. Michael Wohlgemuth, 1995. "Economic and political competition in neoclassical and evolutionary perspective," Constitutional Political Economy, Springer, vol. 6(1), pages 71-96, December.
    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. Libman, Alexander Mikhailovich, 2009. "Эндогенные Границы И Распределение Власти В Федерациях И Международных Сообществах [ENDOGENOUS BOUNDARIES AND DISTRIBUTION OF POWER In the Federation]," MPRA Paper 16473, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    2. Berglöf, Erik & Burkart, Mike & Friebel, Guido & Paltseva, Elena, 2012. "Club-in-the-club: Reform under unanimity," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 40(3), pages 492-507.
    3. Eerola Essi & Määttänen Niku & Poutvaara Panu, 2004. "Citizens Should Vote on Secession," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 4(1), pages 1-22, October.
    4. Gregoire Rota Graziosi, 2003. "The theory of `Internal Exit', a comment on Buchanan and Faith (1987)," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 8(12), pages 1-6.
    5. Hausken, Kjell & Knutsen, John F., 2010. "An enabling mechanism for the creation, adjustment, and dissolution of states and governmental units," Economics - The Open-Access, Open-Assessment E-Journal (2007-2020), Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel), vol. 4, pages 1-38.
    6. Alexander Libman, 2012. "Sub-national political regimes and asymmetric fiscal decentralization," Constitutional Political Economy, Springer, vol. 23(4), pages 302-336, December.
    7. Anesi, Vincent, 2012. "Secessionism and minority protection in an uncertain world," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 96(1), pages 53-61.
    8. Michel Le Breton & Shlomo Weber, 2003. "The Art of Making Everybody Happy: How to Prevent a Secession," IMF Staff Papers, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 50(3), pages 1-4.
    9. Thierry Madiès & Grégoire Rota-Grasiozi & Jean-Pierre Tranchant & Cyril Trépier, 2018. "The economics of secession: a review of legal, theoretical, and empirical aspects," Swiss Journal of Economics and Statistics, Springer;Swiss Society of Economics and Statistics, vol. 154(1), pages 1-18, December.
    10. Grégoire Rota Graziosi, 2009. "On the Strategic Use of Representative Democracy in International Agreements," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 11(2), pages 281-296, April.
    11. Grégoire Rota Graziosi, 2004. "La fragmentation politique, une revue de la littérature," Revue Française d'Économie, Programme National Persée, vol. 18(4), pages 193-223.
    12. Vincent Anesi & Philippe De Donder, 2011. "Voting under the threat of secession: accommodation vs. repression," Working Papers 2011/40, Institut d'Economia de Barcelona (IEB).
    13. Vincent Anesi & Philippe De Donder, 2011. "Voting under the Threat of Secession: Accommodation vs. Repression," CESifo Working Paper Series 3458, CESifo Group Munich.
    14. Federico Etro, 2003. "Globalization and Political Geography," CESifo Working Paper Series 986, CESifo.
    15. Dean Lacy & Emerson M.S. Niou, 2000. "A Problem with Referendums," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 12(1), pages 5-31, January.
    16. Persson, Torsten & Tabellini, Guido, 2002. "Political economics and public finance," Handbook of Public Economics, in: A. J. Auerbach & M. Feldstein (ed.), Handbook of Public Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 24, pages 1549-1659, Elsevier.
    17. Roland Vaubel, 2013. "Secession in the European Union," Economic Affairs, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 33(3), pages 288-302, October.
    18. Feld, Lars P. & Fischer, Justina A.V. & Kirchgaessner, Gebhard, 2007. "The Effect of Direct Democratic Institutions on Income Redistribution: Evidence for Switzerland," SSE/EFI Working Paper Series in Economics and Finance 689, Stockholm School of Economics.
    19. Benoît Le Maux, 2009. "Governmental behavior in representative democracy: a synthesis of the theoretical literature," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 141(3), pages 447-465, December.
    20. Anesi, Vincent, 2012. "Secessionism and minority protection in an uncertain world," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 96(1), pages 53-61.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    constitutional constraints; institutional competition; centralization;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D78 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Positive Analysis of Policy Formulation and Implementation
    • H11 - Public Economics - - Structure and Scope of Government - - - Structure and Scope of Government
    • H77 - Public Economics - - State and Local Government; Intergovernmental Relations - - - Intergovernmental Relations; Federalism
    • P16 - Political Economy and Comparative Economic Systems - - Capitalist Economies - - - Capitalist Institutions; Welfare State

    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:hoh:hohdip:321. 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: Ulrike Berberich (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/ivhohde.html .

    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.