Abstract
Ostracism, the removal of a political leader from ancient Athens for a period often years without any additional financial sanction or other punishment, was an importantand rather unique institutional aspect of the direct democracy. The present study explainsthe adoption of ostracism as the utility maximizing choice of a self–interested constitutionalwriter—cum—political actor to resolve violent political conflict and illustrates that itacted as a type of negative referendum on politicians. Using notions from game theory andspatial decision modeling, the paper goes on to attribute the infrequent use of ostracism toits two-stage decision making process wherein the decisive voter of the first stage differedfrom the decisive voter of the second stage.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 137-159 |
Number of pages | 23 |
Journal | Public Choice |
Volume | 169 |
Issue number | 1-2 |
Early online date | 1 Oct 2016 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published (in print/issue) - 31 Oct 2016 |
Keywords
- Ancient Athens
- ostracism
- intra–elite conflict
- constitutional choice
- backward induction