IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/osf/osfxxx/zetq4.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

James Buchanan, Gordon Tullock, and the “Radically Irresponsible” One Person, One Vote Decisions

Author

Listed:
  • Kuehn, Daniel

Abstract

James Buchanan and Gordon Tullock took a keen interest in the United States Supreme Court’s reapportionment decisions of the 1960s, which established a “one person, one vote” standard for state legislative apportionment. This paper traces the long arc of Buchanan and Tullock’s opposition to the “one person, one vote” standard. The Calculus of Consent offers a highly qualified efficiency argument against “one person, one vote,” but over time Buchanan and Tullock grew even more vocally critical of the decisions. Buchanan ultimately advocated a constitutional amendment overturning “one person, one vote” in a private set of recommendations to Congressional Republicans. This paper additionally assesses Tullock’s 1987 complaint that scholars and judges neglected The Calculus of Consent’s analysis of reapportionment. A review of the reapportionment literature between 1962 and 1987 demonstrates that while the book was frequently cited, the literature generally ignored its analysis of the efficiency of apportionment standards.

Suggested Citation

  • Kuehn, Daniel, 2021. "James Buchanan, Gordon Tullock, and the “Radically Irresponsible” One Person, One Vote Decisions," OSF Preprints zetq4, Center for Open Science.
    • Handle: RePEc:osf:osfxxx:zetq4
    DOI: 10.31219/osf.io/zetq4
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://osf.io/download/60ae7ae304e91a004e178d4a/
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.31219/osf.io/zetq4?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. Alain Marciano, 2018. "From Highway to Clubs: Buchanan and the Pricing of Public Goods," Post-Print hal-02550420, HAL.
    2. Gordon Tullock, 1987. "The Calculus: Postscript after 25 Years," Cato Journal, Cato Journal, Cato Institute, vol. 7(2), pages 313-329, Fall.
    3. Beatrice Cherrier & Jean-Baptiste Fleury, 2017. "Economists’ interest in collective decision after World War II: a history," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 172(1), pages 23-44, July.
    4. Alain Marciano, 2019. "Buchanan and public finance: The tennessee years," The Review of Austrian Economics, Springer;Society for the Development of Austrian Economics, vol. 32(1), pages 21-46, March.
    5. Haefele, Edwin T, 1971. "A Utility Theory of Representative Government," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 61(3), pages 350-367, June.
    6. Peter Aranson, 1991. "Calhoun's constitutional economics," Constitutional Political Economy, Springer, vol. 2(1), pages 31-52, December.
    7. Dongwon Lee & Sangwon Park, 2018. "Court-ordered redistricting and the law of 1/n," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 176(3), pages 507-528, September.
    8. 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.
    9. Richard Wagner, 1966. "Pressure groups and political entrepreneurs: A review article," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 1(1), pages 161-170, December.
    10. Lloyd Shapley & Bernard Grofman, 1984. "Optimizing group judgmental accuracy in the presence of interdependencies," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 43(3), pages 329-343, January.
    11. Dongwon Lee, 2016. "Supermajority rule and bicameral bargaining," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 169(1), pages 53-75, October.
    12. Alexander Salter, 2015. "Calhoun’s concurrent majority as a generality norm," Constitutional Political Economy, Springer, vol. 26(3), pages 375-390, September.
    13. Levy,David M. & Peart,Sandra J., 2020. "Towards an Economics of Natural Equals," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9781108428972, September.
    14. Steven G. Medema, 2020. "The Coase Theorem at Sixty," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 58(4), pages 1045-1128, December.
    15. Alain Marciano, 2007. "Value and exchange in law and economics: Buchanan versus posner," The Review of Austrian Economics, Springer;Society for the Development of Austrian Economics, vol. 20(2), pages 187-200, September.
    16. Jean-Baptiste Fleury & Alain Marciano, 2018. "The Making of a Constitutionalist," Post-Print hal-03472351, HAL.
    17. Jean-Baptiste Fleury & Alain Marciano, 2018. "The Making of a Constitutionalist: James Buchanan on Education," Post-Print hal-01835036, HAL.
    18. Steven Medema, 2011. "A case of mistaken identity: George Stigler, “The Problem of Social Cost,” and the Coase theorem," European Journal of Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 31(1), pages 11-38, February.
    19. Steven G. Medema, 2014. "The Curious Treatment of the Coase Theorem in the Environmental Economics Literature, 1960--1979," Review of Environmental Economics and Policy, Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 8(1), pages 39-57, January.
    20. Wright, Gavin, 2013. "Sharing the Prize: The Economics of the Civil Rights Revolution in the American South," Economics Books, Harvard University Press, number 9780674049338, Spring.
    21. Julius Margolis, 1970. "The Analysis of Public Output," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number marg70-1.
    22. Arthur Denzau, 1985. "Constitutional change and agenda control," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 47(1), pages 183-217, January.
    23. James Miller, 1969. "A program for direct and proxy voting in the legislative process," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 7(1), pages 107-113, September.
    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. Jean-Baptiste Fleury & Alain Marciano, 2022. "Methodological Individualism and the Foundations of the "Law and Economics" movement," Post-Print hal-03820441, HAL.
    2. Alain Marciano, 2024. "What should economists do?: A historical perspective," The Review of Austrian Economics, Springer;Society for the Development of Austrian Economics, vol. 37(3), pages 237-254, September.
    3. Gustavo Nunes Mourão & Eduardo Angeli, 2022. "A classification of the methodology of James M. Buchanan from a multidisciplinary perspective," Constitutional Political Economy, Springer, vol. 33(4), pages 413-432, December.
    4. Dhillon, Amrita & Kotsialou, Grammateia & Xefteris, Dimitris, 2021. "Information Aggregation with Delegation of Votes," SocArXiv ubk7p, Center for Open Science.
    5. Hummel Jeffrey Rogers & Lavoie Don, 1994. "National Defense And The Public-Goods Problem," Journal des Economistes et des Etudes Humaines, De Gruyter, vol. 5(2-3), pages 353-378, June.
    6. Schneider, Friedrich G., 2009. "Is a Federal European Constitution for an enlarged European Union necessary? Some preliminary suggestions using public choice analysis," University of Göttingen Working Papers in Economics 83, University of Goettingen, Department of Economics.
    7. Pivato, Marcus, 2017. "Epistemic democracy with correlated voters," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 72(C), pages 51-69.
    8. Henrik Egbert & Teodor Sedlarski & Aleksandar B. Todorov, 2022. "Foundations of contemporary economics: George Stigler and the Chicago school of economics – on price theory and information economics," Economic Thought journal, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences - Economic Research Institute, issue 4, pages 452-472.
    9. Pivato, Marcus & Soh, Arnold, 2020. "Weighted representative democracy," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 88(C), pages 52-63.
    10. Gary D. Libecap, 2016. "Coasean Bargaining to Address Environmental Externalities," NBER Working Papers 21903, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    11. repec:got:cegedp:83 is not listed on IDEAS
    12. Alain Marciano, 2020. "Buchanan, Popular Myths, and the Social Responsibility of Economists," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 86(4), pages 1613-1629, April.
    13. Peter Aranson, 1991. "Calhoun's constitutional economics," Constitutional Political Economy, Springer, vol. 2(1), pages 31-52, December.
    14. Paul Windrum, 2013. "Multi-agent framework for understanding the success and failure of ServPPINs," Chapters, in: Faïz Gallouj & Luis Rubalcaba & Paul Windrum (ed.), Public–Private Innovation Networks in Services, chapter 4, pages 88-112, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    15. Sergey Sinelnikov & Pavel Kadochnikov & Ilya Trunin, 2008. "From Elections to Appointments of the Regional Governors: Major Challenges and Outcomes," Published Papers 2, Gaidar Institute for Economic Policy, revised 2008.
    16. De Santo, Alessia & Le Maux, Benoît, 2023. "On the optimal size of legislatures: An illustrated literature review," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 77(C).
    17. Joseph McMurray, 2017. "Ideology as Opinion: A Spatial Model of Common-Value Elections," American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 9(4), pages 108-140, November.
    18. Philip Jones, 2004. "‘All for One and One for All’: Transactions Cost and Collective Action," Political Studies, Political Studies Association, vol. 52(3), pages 450-468, October.
    19. Berg, Sven, 1997. "Indirect voting systems: Banzhaf numbers, majority functions and collective competence," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 13(3), pages 557-573, September.
    20. Alain Marciano, 2022. "Sado-Masochism in Buchanan's Samaritan's Dilemma. A Constitutional Perspective," Post-Print hal-03683854, HAL.
    21. Mahajan, Aseem & Pongou, Roland & Tondji, Jean-Baptiste, 2023. "Supermajority politics: Equilibrium range, policy diversity, utilitarian welfare, and political compromise," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 307(2), pages 963-974.

    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:osf:osfxxx:zetq4. 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: OSF (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://osf.io/preprints/ .

    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.