Abstract
The present essay explains the meaning of divided government (section 1); introduces the king–and–council template of governance characterising territorial governments where responsibilities for choosing the policies of an organization are divided between a single person, “the king”, and a committee, “council”, of more or less equal members, who take important decisions by voting, and analyses its advantages to resolve problems of information, power sharing and succession (section 2); presents historical examples of reallocation of power between the king and the council, including the emergence of modern democracy, and demonstrates the theoretical intuition behind those constitutional exchanges (section 3); examines the ability to define political property rights and how constitutional courts assist in this respect (section 4); and shows why contrary to doctrines of separation of powers, control over policy making is in practice shared among different branches of government (section 5).
Original language | English |
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Title of host publication | The Oxford Handbook of Public Choice |
Editors | Roger Congleton, Bernard Grofman, Stefan Voigt |
Chapter | Volume 2 Chapter 3 |
Pages | 44-60 |
Number of pages | 17 |
Volume | Oxford University Press |
Publication status | Published (in print/issue) - 2019 |
Keywords
- King–and–council template; divided government; constitutional exchange; Edgeworth box; political property rights
- method of appointment to office; hereditary succession; constitutional courts; separation and fusion of powers