IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/iik/wpaper/104.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Aristotle’s Politics: On Constitutions, Justice, Laws and Stability

Author

Listed:
  • Krishna K Ladha

    (Indian Institute of Management Kozhikode)

Abstract

Aristotle's Politics can be divided into two inquiries, each amenable to mathematical representation. The first inquiry assumes, probably idealistically, that individuals act in the collective interest and leads to the following theorem: polity (a rule of many good men) is better than aristocracy (few good men), and aristocracy is better than monarchy (one good man). The second inquiry assumes, more realistically, that individuals act in self-interest and leads to the following theorem as a justification for democracy: Among various systems of government, democracy (a mixed constitution with a rule of law sustained by competing factions) offers the best prospect to deliver two things at once: justice (pursuit of the common interest) and stability (obedience of the rule of law). The latter theorem implies that institutionalization of competing factions governed by good laws is likely to be just and stable. It applies to nations, corporations and towns facing the tragedy of the commons, externalities and reneging.

Suggested Citation

  • Krishna K Ladha, 2012. "Aristotle’s Politics: On Constitutions, Justice, Laws and Stability," Working papers 104, Indian Institute of Management Kozhikode.
    • Handle: RePEc:iik:wpaper:104
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://iimk.ac.in/websiteadmin/FacultyPublications/Working%20Papers/104abs.pdf?t=41
    File Function: First version, 2016
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Fearon, James D., 1995. "Rationalist explanations for war," International Organization, Cambridge University Press, vol. 49(3), pages 379-414, July.
    2. Peter C. Ordeshook, . "Lessons for Citizens of a New Democracy," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 1213.
    3. Satterthwaite, Mark Allen, 1975. "Strategy-proofness and Arrow's conditions: Existence and correspondence theorems for voting procedures and social welfare functions," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 10(2), pages 187-217, April.
    4. Sen, Amartya K, 1977. "Social Choice Theory: A Re-examination," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 45(1), pages 53-89, January.
    5. Acemoglu,Daron & Robinson,James A., 2009. "Economic Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521671422, September.
    6. North, Douglass C. & Weingast, Barry R., 1989. "Constitutions and Commitment: The Evolution of Institutions Governing Public Choice in Seventeenth-Century England," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 49(4), pages 803-832, December.
    7. Miller, Nicholas R., 1983. "Pluralism and Social Choice," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 77(3), pages 734-747, September.
    8. Sen, Amartya Kumar, 1970. "The Impossibility of a Paretian Liberal," Scholarly Articles 3612779, Harvard University Department of Economics.
    9. Sen, Amartya, 1970. "The Impossibility of a Paretian Liberal," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 78(1), pages 152-157, Jan.-Feb..
    10. Norman Schofield, 1978. "Instability of Simple Dynamic Games," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 45(3), pages 575-594.
    11. Schofield,Norman, 2006. "Architects of Political Change," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521832021, September.
    12. Schofield,Norman, 2006. "Architects of Political Change," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521539722, September.
    13. McKelvey, Richard D., 1976. "Intransitivities in multidimensional voting models and some implications for agenda control," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 12(3), pages 472-482, June.
    14. Gibbard, Allan, 1973. "Manipulation of Voting Schemes: A General Result," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 41(4), pages 587-601, July.
    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. Norman Schofield, 2015. "Climate Change, Collapse and Social Choice Theory," Czech Economic Review, Charles University Prague, Faculty of Social Sciences, Institute of Economic Studies, vol. 9(1), pages 007-035, October.
    2. Kotaro Suzumura, 2002. "Introduction to social choice and welfare," Temi di discussione (Economic working papers) 442, Bank of Italy, Economic Research and International Relations Area.
    3. Robi Ragan, 2015. "Computational social choice," Chapters, in: Jac C. Heckelman & Nicholas R. Miller (ed.), Handbook of Social Choice and Voting, chapter 5, pages 67-80, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    4. Azam, Jean-Paul, 2008. "Macroeconomic Agenda for Fiscal Policy and Aid Effectiveness in Post-Conflict Countries," IDEI Working Papers 539, Institut d'Économie Industrielle (IDEI), Toulouse.
    5. Bezalel Peleg & Ron Holzman, 2017. "Representations of Political Power Structures by Strategically Stable Game Forms: A Survey," Games, MDPI, vol. 8(4), pages 1-17, October.
    6. Paul Brewer & Jeremy Juybari & Raymond Moberly, 2024. "A comparison of zero- and minimal-intelligence agendas in majority-rule voting models," Journal of Economic Interaction and Coordination, Springer;Society for Economic Science with Heterogeneous Interacting Agents, vol. 19(3), pages 403-437, July.
    7. Lars-Gunnar Svensson & Pär Torstensson, 2008. "Strategy-proof allocation of multiple public goods," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 30(2), pages 181-196, February.
    8. Salvador Barberà & Dolors Berga & Bernardo Moreno, 2020. "Arrow on domain conditions: a fruitful road to travel," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 54(2), pages 237-258, March.
    9. Peter Kurrild-Klitgaard, 2014. "Empirical social choice: an introduction," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 158(3), pages 297-310, March.
    10. John W. Patty & Elizabeth Maggie Penn, 2019. "A defense of Arrow’s independence of irrelevant alternatives," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 179(1), pages 145-164, April.
    11. Keith L. Dougherty & Julian Edward, 2022. "The effect of unconditional preferences on Sen’s paradox," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 93(3), pages 427-447, October.
    12. John Chamberlin, 1986. "Discovering manipulated social choices: The coincidence of cycles and manipulated outcomes," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 51(3), pages 295-313, January.
    13. Salvador Barberà, 2003. "A Theorem on Preference Aggregation," UFAE and IAE Working Papers 601.03, Unitat de Fonaments de l'Anàlisi Econòmica (UAB) and Institut d'Anàlisi Econòmica (CSIC).
    14. John Craven, 2023. "Self-designation and group allocation," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 94(1), pages 121-133, January.
    15. Farrer, Benjamin & Holahan, Robert & Shvetsova, Olga, 2017. "Accounting for heterogeneous private risks in the provision of collective goods: Controversial compulsory contracting institutions in horizontal hydrofracturing," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 133(C), pages 138-150.
    16. Yi, Jianxin & Li, Yong, 2016. "A general impossibility theorem and its application to individual rights," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 81(C), pages 79-86.
    17. Sato, Shin, 2013. "A sufficient condition for the equivalence of strategy-proofness and nonmanipulability by preferences adjacent to the sincere one," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 148(1), pages 259-278.
    18. Dennis Mueller, 1990. "James M. Buchanan: Economist cum contractarian," Constitutional Political Economy, Springer, vol. 1(2), pages 169-196, March.
    19. Derek Clark & Christian Riis, 2008. "Rational benevolence in small committees," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 134(3), pages 139-146, March.
    20. Jack Paine, 2024. "A comment on Powell and formal models of power sharing ," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 36(2), pages 212-233, April.

    More about this item

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:iik:wpaper:104. 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: Sudheesh Kumar (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/iikmmin.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.