European Journal of Law and Economics, 13: 183–192, 2002© 2002 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Manufactured in The Netherlands.

Votes and Outcomes: Rethinking thePolitics-Like-Markets Metaphor

FRANCESCO PARISI parisi@gmu.eduGeorge Mason University, School of Law, 3401 North Fairfax Drive, Arlington, VA 22201

Abstract

Legislative and political bodies seldom work like markets. This paper revisits the politics-like-market analogiesconsidering the role of logrolling in political representation. These considerations will hopefully facilitate theassessment of the normative implications of the “commodification” of political consensus. While certainlycorroding some of the aspirational and expressive qualities of the political system, logrolling would ensure agreater opportunity for cardinal preferences to be captured in political decision-making.

Keywords: political markets, logrolling, Arrow’s theorem

JEL Classification: K1, H10

During the nineteenth century, the enlightened ideals of democratic decision-making andthe emerged dynamics of political governance fostered a change in the conception ofstatutory law. Ideals of democratic legislation gradually replaced the historic conceptionof statutory law as a written articulation of laws of a higher and older origin. Lawswere no longer considered the expression of preexisting natural or fundamental rights,but became rather the primary, if not the only, source of individual rights. Rights werederived from laws, rather than laws being derived for the protection of individual rights.Legislative bodies made (i.e., created) law as opposed to finding (i.e., recognizing) pre-existing legal norms. With the exception of some minimal constitutional constraints onlaw making, national legislatures acted as sovereign lawmakers. Such unbounded legisla-tive powers were justified by the alleged function of legislative organs as faithful agentsand political representatives of the people.1

1. Lawmaking and political representation

The unfolding of history has revealed the true face of democratic decision-making and thelimits of the mechanisms of political representation in lawmaking. There are two theoreti-cally distinct problems that affect these mechanisms. These issues have become the focusof several important contributions in public choice and social choice literature. Withinthe public choice tradition, we learn that political representatives are agents of their con-stituents. Such political representation is often affected by pervasive agency problems.The correction of these problems requires the choice of collective decision-making pro-cedures that promote the alignment of the incentives of political representatives with

184 PARISI

those of the represented citizens, or else an effective monitoring and accountability ofpolitical agents. Agency problems of this type do not affect political representation ifincentives are effectively aligned. Much of the public choice and constitutional designliterature address these fundamental problems.2

The second problem emerges even in the absence of agency problems in representation.This problem is one of the selection of appropriate criteria for aggregating individualpreferences. If the interests of politicians align those of their constituents, politics can beviewed as a framework for bargaining among political agents of the various factions insociety. The question is whether political bargaining can successfully yield a consensusamong the various political groups such that political outcomes can be legitimately andunambiguously identified with the “will of the people.”As the social choice literature has often pointed out, even if we contemplate a world

of perfect incentive alignment between political representatives and represented citizens(i.e., even if we assume away agency problems in political representation), there is noassurance that the mechanisms of law making are responsive to the underlying prefer-ences of individuals in society.

1.1. Collective decision-making and the political Coase theorem

One of the main insights from social choice theory is that the correlation between pref-erence and choice is weaker for groups than for individuals (Shubik 1982, p. 124).According to Arrow’s (1951) possibility theorem, it may indeed be too much to expectmethods of collective decision making to concurrently be both rational and egalitarian.Arrow’s theorem shows that any adopted social decision must violate at least one of sixself-evident axioms of normative political theory, commonly described by the followingterms: range, universal domain, unanimity, nondictatorship, independence of irrelevantalternatives, and rationality. Arrow’s negative conclusion and its various corollaries posea dramatic threat to the legitimacy of political decisions. The observation that the like-lihood of cycling majorities decreases when the number of decision-makers exceeds thenumber of choices does not affect the practical relevance of Arrow’s analysis applied tothe political process, where the large number of decision-makers is actually concentratedinto a restricted number of interest groups with “group” votes.The heart of Arrow’s theorem states that there are no non-dictatorial rules or proce-

dures for collective decision-making that reflect the combined preferences of voters toa consistent collective outcome (Arrow 1951). The implications of the theorem concernthe existence of cyclical majorities which are capable of repealing any resolution thathas been previously adopted. Parisi (1998) suggests that if all voters are allowed to enterinto binding agreements over the policy outcome to be adopted by the majority coalition,collective preferences in a multi-dimensional policy space will be transitive as long asindividual preferences are single-peaked.This intuition runs contrary to the common thought in public and social choice theory

(see, e.g., Bernholz 1973; Miller 1977; and Schwartz 1977). Most of the literature onthe stability implications of logrolling considers logrolling in the context of bargainingfor the formation of coalitions where side-payments are only instruments for enteringthe majority coalition, and no side-payments are made by those outside the majority.

POLITICS-LIKE-MARKETS METAPHOR 185

The political reality is often different than that which is contemplated by these schol-ars. Bargaining is certainly permitted even between minority and majority voters, withexchanges taking place among all coalitions. If we allow for a broader role for bargain-ing and side-payments and contemplate binding and enforceable political bargains acrossdifferent coalitions, the results would be quite different.

1.2. One man, one vote, and the role of logrolling

Intransitivity may result in situations in which no strong political consensus is reachedon a given issue. Intransitivity implies that a different order in the decision-makingprocess may affect the outcome and that any winning coalition may be undermined by thereintroduction of an alternative it previously defeated. The structure of the voting processdoes not allow the cycle to be broken by examining the intensity of voters’ preferences.The outcome is arbitrarily determined by the order of motions, with no guarantee that theultimate result will yield a higher level of social welfare than that potentially afforded byany other defeated policy alternative. The inability of the democratic process to capturethe intensity of the voters’ preferences is a by-product of the generally espoused principlethat every individual is entitled to one vote only. The “one man, one vote” rule is furtherexplained by the fact that individual voters do not face the opportunity cost of castingtheir vote. Whether their preference is strong or weak, voters will cast their vote in favorof their preferred option. Even if voting were specifically designed to allow voters toindicate the intensity of their preferences, the voting ballot could not possibly capturesuch intensity. Absent a mechanism to extract the true intensity of their preferences,individual voters would tend to overstate their preference in order to maximize the impactof their votes.Democracy gives equal weight to all votes regardless of how strongly voters feel

about an issue. Consequently, numerically equal groups have an equal political say in theprocess. However, if the distribution of sentiments on an issue is asymmetrical, andthe minority holds strong preferences, the outcome would be inefficient. By introducingthe possibility of bargaining and vote-trading in the process, the intensity of preferenceswill be reflected in the decision-making process. With bargaining and side-payments, the“one man, one vote” rule would provide the initial entitlement for each voter-trader. Theexchange mechanism would then reveal the relative strength of individual preferences.Political bargaining may provide a solution to the intensity problem, while at the sametime correcting the cyclicality problem.Logrolling and political bargaining in many ways increase the internal predictabil-

ity of the outcome for those who are involved in the process and are fully informedof it. Logrolling allows for bargaining and political exchange to foster stable politicalarrangements. To the extent to which political exchange is supported by enforcementmechanisms (e.g., reputation of political players, etc.) legislators sharing similar informa-tion on their respective prospects will have an opportunity to bargain under conditions ofsymmetric information, trading votes for issues on which they hold weak preferences inexchange for votes on issues which they more highly value. Economic theory teaches usthat bargaining between politicians will continue until the marginal utility of gaining onevote on a certain issue equals the marginal cost of giving up one vote for another issue.

186 PARISI

The outcome selected by majorities in such an environment of costless and enforceablepolitical bargaining improves the combined welfare of the platforms. These results con-firm Buchanan and Tullock’s (1962, p. 153) important observation that “with all sidepayments prohibited, there is no assurance that collective action will be taken in themost productive way.” Both stability and efficiency will be obtained through bargaining,as long as the exchanges are enforceable and relatively costless to carry out.3 The impli-cations are very far-reaching and can be articulated in the following two propositions4:

(i) If the conditions for the Coase theorem are present for all voters (i.e., if politicalagents can enter into coalition contracts with other agents and such contracts areenforceable as stipulated, unless mutually dissolved by all parties), the compositionof the initial majority coalition is irrelevant for the policy outcome; and

(ii) If the Coase theorem holds, voters’ preferences are strictly concave, and vote-exchange agreements are enforceable, cycling in a multi-dimensional policy space isexcluded.

Thus, if political bargains are attainable at no cost and political agreements are enforce-able, the resulting political equilibrium will be unique and will occur at a point of socialmaximum. Any point other than the global maximum will be unstable, as there willalways be enough surplus to allow for side-payments to voters in exchange for policyconcessions. Once the socially optimal point is reached, there will be no opportunity todestabilize the policy arrangement.

2. The limits of political markets

The politics-like-markets metaphors form an established foundation of much of the workin public choice and political economy. Stigler (1971), Becker (1983) and Peltzman(1990), among others, have provided seminal formulations of the efficiency hypothesis ofpolitics. The trust of this foundational hypothesis is that political markets are generallyclearing, at least in the sense that, in equilibrium, no individual can improve his wealth(or utility) without reducing the wealth (or utility) of at least one other individual.5

In real politics, however, legislative and political bodies seldom work like markets.Cooter (2000) points out four main challenges to the politics-like-market analogy. Thefirst reason is that political agents are limited to the extent to which they can enter intobinding political contracts. The second reason why political markets do not function likeordinary markets is that the value of a legislator’s vote often depends upon how otherlegislators vote. There are pervasive externalities and resulting free riding incentives inpolitical action. The third reason is that real life politics has too many political actors foreach one to bargain with everyone else. Unlike the atomistic marketplace of traditionaleconomics, bilateral negotiations would be prohibitively expensive in real life politics.Fourth, Cooter points out the diffuse hostility to a rationalization of politics as a marketfor consensus. Ordinary citizens with little information about legislative bargains wouldresist any institutionalization of political bargaining, objecting to their representativesparticipating in open logrolling.Indeed, a full analysis of the politics-like-market analogy cannot be accomplished in a

vacuum, but rather must be exposed to the reality of democratic politics. The following

POLITICS-LIKE-MARKETS METAPHOR 187

corollaries are illustrative in this regard: (1) limited enforceability of political contracts;(2) issue bundling; (3) free riding and bargaining failures; and (4) agency problems andthe political dilemma.

2.1. Enforcing political bargains

The results discussed in Section 1 rest on a quite formidable condition. Political agree-ments should be supported by effective enforcement mechanisms. For the purpose of ouranalysis, the enforcement mechanism can be legal, institutional or informal in nature.Indeed, regardless of whether the stability of political agreements is induced by judi-cial bodies, such as the judicial enforcement of such agreements (like ordinary contractsin a private law context), or is spontaneously achieved, as with the informal enforce-ment mechanisms considered in Kronman (1985), the Coasian bargaining results holdsin politics like in markets.The enforceability condition further requires that any attempt to modify the policy

choice bargained for by a coalition of voters would have to be accepted by all parties—contracts can be resolved only with the consent of the contracting parties. In this setting,minority voters can join the coalition and have a marginal effect on the policy outcomeby out-bidding or “bribing” all members of the pre-existing majority. With enforceablecontracts, members of a majority coalition cannot secede unilaterally by regrouping witha minority group. Rather, they will collectively entertain offers made by minority voterswho will influence the status quo with their side payments, but they will not be able tobreak away from an existing coalition, since such coalition agreements can be modifiedonly with the consent of all parties.These ideal conditions, however, are rarely met in real life politics. As pointed out by

Cooter (2000), in real politics, bargaining is afflicted by a special problem usually absentin private contracts. Political agents are limited to the extent to which they can enter intoenforceable political bargains. For example, coalition agreements are only good until anew coalition is formed. Likewise, there is no way to bind future voting decisions in alog-rolling context, or to constrain the choices of future office-holders.In a traditional contract setting, a contractual agreement can be undone only with the

consent of all original contracting parties. Conversely, in informal political agreements,any political agent can betray the original agreement and destabilize the original coalition.There are no direct legal remedies to render such agreements enforceable.In general, no agreement between current members of Congress regarding future voting

is enforceable under the law. For example, majority deliberations cannot be perpetuatedprohibiting future amendments or requiring that such amendments be carried out with asuper-majority vote. Legislators sometimes have to be creative to make contracts enforce-able in the real-world market for votes. In several occasions political actors attempt tosignal the enforceability of their bargains (and ensure its influence against the status quo)in a future vote by publicly stating that they would not “go back and undo the thingsthat they pledged that they would do.” In other situations, the repeat interaction amongpoliticians may induce the fulfillment of some political bargains, thus facilitating politi-cal cooperation.6 However, the general non-enforceability of political bargains limits thedeals that can be struck among political representatives and among the various branches

188 PARISI

of government. In the conclusions, I shall return to the issue of enforceability of polit-ical contracts and briefly examine how much the lack of institutions favoring politicalbargaining in the procedures of political bodies reflects the belief that logrolling wouldbe detrimental to society at large.

2.2. Issue bundling and the reduced domains of political bargaining

Transaction costs exist in the real world of politics. To minimize the effect of transactioncosts, policy “packages” are traded and voted upon in the usual course of dealing. Politi-cal deals are indeed characterized by a bundling of different issues. Congressional votingnormally requires a binomial vote on legislation, supplying a bundle of bargained-forprovisions. House and Senate rules do not prevent amendments that are unrelated to thesubject matter of the bill at issue (Dixon 1985; Riggs 1973).7

From an efficiency perspective, bundling, like tying in a commodity market, maygenerate suboptimal outcomes. In order for a vote exchange process to work at its best,all dimensions of the policy space should be the potential object of bargaining andtrade. Bundling reduces the dimensions of the bargaining space. At the limit, all policydimensions may collapse into a two-dimensional policy space, limiting the domain ofthe bargaining process.In an ideal world with no transaction costs, no bundling should exist in order to

maximize the beneficial functioning of the political market. In the real world with positivetransaction costs, a positive amount of bundling is to be expected and is part of theglobal optimization process. Elhauge (1991, p. 31) has noted that where there is issuebundling, “diffuse interests can be systematically under-represented even if voters face nocollective action problem.” However, the market will adjust to reach the optimal tradeoffsbetween the savings on transaction costs and the inefficiencies of tying.

2.3. Collective action problems and political bargaining failures

One further consideration should be made on the issue of transaction costs. A costlesstransaction requires the absence of strategic behavior in the bargaining process. Thiscondition is highly problematic in the context of multi-party voting. The opportunity forindividual strategic behavior is elevated where two polar groups seek compromise. In thereal-world market for votes, the term “triangulation” has been used to describe the resultof efforts to legislate in the middle ground between ideological extremes, where vote-trading transaction costs are high (Broder (1997), attributing the “triangulation” conceptto former Clinton advisor Dick Morris).All cyclicality problems require the presence of at least three voters. Bargaining among

three voters in a two-dimensional space is highly sensitive to free riding and other formsof strategic preference revelation. If we think of this triangular situation in a spatial votingsetting, we can realize that any movement in the policy space will generate benefits orlosses for at least two parties. In the great majority of cases, all three parties will beaffected by a potential policy change. Under such conditions, any bargaining carried outby one voter has the potential of creating side benefits for another voter. Any policy

POLITICS-LIKE-MARKETS METAPHOR 189

change “purchased” by one voter is potentially a free good (or a free bad) for anothervoter. In a three-party bargaining, the voters are thus faced with a collective actionproblem. The problem is exacerbated by an increase in the number of voters. In a multi-voter setting, strategic behavior may indeed plague the bargaining process.The collective action problem described above is not different from any other free

riding problem in a Coasian setting. Olson (1997) has discussed the collective actionproblem in the context of Coasian bargaining, questioning the practical validity of theCoasian proposition in a multi-party context. If the object of one individual’s bargaininggenerates a benefit to other individuals who are not involved in the bargain, what isobtained through the bargaining of one individual creates a positive externality to otherindividuals. Thus the incentives to undertake the bargaining may be seriously under-mined. Every individual wishes to be the free rider, having somebody else pay for thecommon good. Thus, similar to any public good situation, there will be a sub-optimallevel of bargaining for the common interest.

2.4. Agency problems and the political accountability dilemma

Public law scholars suggest that logrolling and other implicit or explicit politicalexchanges should be discouraged because they undermine political accountability andbecause imperfections in the market for votes are likely to engender costs that out-weigh their benefits (Karlan 1999). The analysis of the hypothetical market for votesconsidered in this article considers the voters’ will as a given. Further analysis shouldconsider the effect of agency problems in the bargaining mechanism. In the real worldof politics, most collective decisions are carried out by political representatives, whoundertake collective decisions as agents of the represented individuals. Public choicetheory provides ample analysis of the factors of such incentive misalignment, including(a) rational abstention; (b) rational ignorance; and (c) regulatory capture and consequentspecial interest legislation. Such discrepancies are most visible when an agency problemin political representation occurs at the margin of a crucial vote.If bargaining is carried out in the absence of agency problems, the bargaining result

maximizes the voters’ utility, as illustrated above. But where the bargaining is carriedout by interested representatives, there is an opportunity to depart from the optimalityoutcome described above.In general terms, if market mechanisms are allowed to operate in political contexts,

the collective decision-making mechanism is lubricated. In the absence of representationfailures, the collective outcome will approximate the allocative outcome of a compet-itive market. If bargaining is carried out by agents whose underlying incentives differfrom those of their principals, the market mechanism may generate greater discrepanciesbetween the ideal and the real political outcomes, including the fact that agents may beinduced to abandon their principals’ core values.

3. Conclusion: Political markets and the dogmas of public law

The absence of legal enforcement mechanisms in political contracts increases trans-action costs and often represents an unsurmountable obstacle to political cooperation.

190 PARISI

In this respect, modern public law theory presents a striking paradox, noting that manypublic law systems invite “wholesale” vote buying, but prohibit vote buying at the“retail” level (Levinson 1999, p. 1749). The exchange of campaign contributions forfavorable governmental policy outcomes from political office-holders, is an uncontestedreality of the political market, yet there is a substantial intellectual hostility in therecognition, let alone the enforcement, of explicit transactions for political consensus.8

Such hostility is often the result of the belief that logrolling favors organized pressuregroups.From a law and economics perspective, it is indeed interesting to realize how much the

lack of institutions for favoring political bargaining in the procedures of political demo-cratic assemblies reflects the belief that logrolling would be impeding proper democraticrepresentation. The belief that the enforcement of political deals would be detrimentalto society at large—often crystallized into public law dogmas—has prevented a coherenttheoretical treatment of this important legal and political issue.In this paper I revisited the recent conclusions regarding the efficiency effects of polit-

ical contracts in a democratic setting, and considered some of the limitations of politics-like market analogues. I suggested that such analogies, while most inspirational from atheoretical point of view, risk overlooking the difficulties of correcting political failuresthrough political bargaining. To the extent that political bargaining may be instrumentalto improving upon the limitations of majoritarian democracy, the institutional design oflawmaking should promote arrangements that minimize the transaction costs of politicalbargaining. This should be done with the full awareness that the existence of effectiveexchange mechanisms within politics accentuates the features of the underlying politicalsystem. In a world of “good” politics, it allows for better outcomes. Conversely, in aworld of political failures, it may exacerbate the existing problems.In a political reality which is already characterized by implicit bargaining under the

form of logrolling, the existence of enforcement mechanisms within politics would pro-mote stability and reduce costly intransitivity in the bargaining process or, worse yet, inthe policy outcomes. The legal and institutional recognition of this practical reality, farfrom exacerbating the agency problems in political representation, would increase thepolitical accountability of political actors. A transparent and tractable market for politicalconsensus, such as a recorded system of vote trading, supported by means of institu-tional enforcement, would give full visibility to the opaque system of implicit logrolling.This would unquestionably augment the political accountability of political actors incases of representative democracy. Furthermore, the application of the most basic prin-ciples of contract law in the enforcement of political contracts would alone generate thenecessary safeguards for the stability of political coalitions, without reducing the abil-ity of minority groups to bargain with majority coalitions to change the chosen policyagenda.The true benefit of having enforceable political bargains, however, should not be solely

searched in the induced stability of the political outcomes. As discussed above, stabilitycannot be used as a proxy for efficiency. It is indeed well-known in social and pub-lic choice literature that where a “Condorcet winner” can at times be inefficient, it canalways at least be trusted to satisfy the preferences of the majority of voting individuals.Absent mechanisms to induce voters to reveal the true intensity of their preferences,

POLITICS-LIKE-MARKETS METAPHOR 191

democratic legislative systems cannot improve on Condorcet winners and should main-tain rules that allow such alternatives to prevail when they exist. If Condorcet winners donot exist, the method and sequence of voting (e.g., agenda setting) determine the politi-cal outcome. In these cases, as Cooter (2000) aptly states, “democratic politics becomesa contest, not to satisfy the preferences of a unique majority, but to determine whichmajority’s preferences will be satisfied.”9

The enforceability of political bargains delivers more than mere stability. For thispurpose, institutions should be designed in order to give an opportunity to political actorsto reveal the true intensity of the preferences of their voters (or their own preferences, inthe event of direct democracy) by entering into binding vote exchanges and facing thetrue opportunity cost of casting their vote, rather than transferring it to higher valuingpolitical actors. Supporting such exchanges with institutional enforcement yields the dualbenefit of minimizing the welfare costs of voting intransitivity and allowing the politicaloutcome to reflect the cardinal preferences of the voters. In this respect, the existence ofinstitutions to facilitate political exchange may be a valuable instrument of stability andpolitical efficiency.

Notes

1. Comparative differences in legal systems often reflect different ideologies and conceptions of the politicaleconomy of lawmaking. In recent times, however, modern legal systems of both the civil law and com-mon law traditions have been giving increasingly greater importance to regulations and special statutes ascompared to other sources of law.

2. Many of these arguments can be found in the seminal book by Riker (1982).3. These conclusions also provide a conjectural solution to Tullock’s (1981) puzzle as to why, after all, there

is so much stability in the political process.4. For a mathematical formulation of these points, see Parisi (2001).5. For an outsider’s review essay on the Chicago perspective on political markets, see Rowley (1993, pp. 11–14).6. Finally, as well-known in the collective action literature (e.g., Olson 1965), groups with lower collec-

tive action costs can be more effective in gathering the most effective bribe, as public choice theory hasextensively demonstrated in a variety of rent-seeking contexts (Kahn 1990; Dixit and Olson 1997).

7. For example, when Congress sent President Clinton the 1997 appropriations bill that funds White Houseoperations, it included legislative riders ranging from the repeal of a law allowing states to share in federalprice discounts from the pharmaceutical industry, to a provision to clarify that imports manufactured byindentured child labor are prohibited (Rogers 1997). Although the item veto enabled President Clinton toremove particular items from such bundles, he has generally utilized that power narrowly and selectively(Penny 1997).

8. Most recently, Karlan (1999, p. 1711) has provided an explanation of this commonly observed public lawdogma, suggesting that the legal system denies legal enforcement to political agreements to discouragepolitical deals. The buying of votes is prevented and, at the same time, implicit vote-buying throughcampaign promises is permitted because the wholesale campaign “serve informational role that enablesvoters generally to choose more intelligently among candidates.”

9. Politicians know well that under certain conditions, the voting outcome may depend on the sequence ofdecisions and consequently agenda-setting. For example, in a situation with intransitive preferences, theagenda-setter may influence the process in favor of his preferred policy by determining the sequence ofdecisions and introducing his preferred policy in the last motion. This point is well known among publicchoice theorists and legal practitioners. Judge Easterbrook (1983) has noted that “someone with control ofthe agenda can manipulate the choice so that the legislature adopts proposals that only a minority support.”(See also Levine and Plott, 1977; Long and Rose-Ackerman 1982.)

192 PARISI

References

Arrow, K. J. (1951). Social Choice and Individual Values, New Haven: Yale University Press.Becker, G. S. (1983). “A Theory of Competition Among Pressure Groups for Political Influence.” Quarterly

Journal of Economics. 98, 371–400.Bernholz, P. (1973). “Logrolling, Arrow-Paradox and Cyclical Majorities.” Public Choice. 15, 87–95.Broder, D. S. (1997). “Catatonic Politics.” Washington Post. Nov. 11, A19.Buchanan, J. M. & Tullock, G. (1962). The Calculus of Consent. Logical Foundations of Constitutional Democ-

racy, Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press.Coase, R. H. (1960). “The Problem of Social Cost.” Journal of Law and Economics. 3, 1–44.Cooter, R. D. (2000). The Strategic Constitution, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Dixit, A. & Olson, M. Jr. (1997). “Does Voluntary Participation Undermine the Coase Theorem?” Aug. 6,

unpublished manuscript on file with the George Mason Law Review.Dixon, A. J. (1985). “Line-Item Veto Controversy.” Congressional Digest. 64, 259, 282.Easterbrook, F. H. (1983). “Statutes’ Domains.” University of Chicago Law Review. 50, 533.Elhauge, E. R. (1991). “Does Interest Group Theory Justify More Intrusive Judicial Review?” Yale Law Journal.

101, 31.Kahn, P. L. (1990). “The Politics of Unregulation: Public Choice and Limits on Government.” Cornell Law

Review. 75, 280, 312 n. 101.Karlan, P. (1999). “Symposium Commentary: Politics By Other Means.” Virginia Law Review. 85, 1697.Kronman, A. (1985). “Contract Law and the State of Nature.” Journal of Law, Economics and Organization.

1, 5.Levine & Plott (1977). “Agenda Influence and its Implications.” Virginia Law Review. 63, 561.Long & Rose-Ackerman (1982). “Winning the Contest by Agenda Manipulation,” Journal of Polymer and

Management. 2, 123.McNutt, P. A. (1996). The Economics of Public Choice. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar.Miller, N. R. (1977). “Logrolling, Vote Trading and the Paradox of Voting: A Game Theoretical Overview.”

Public Choice. 30, 51.Olson, M. (1965). The Logic of Collective Action, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Olson, M. (1997). “The Coase Theorem is False?” Paper presented at the 1997 American Law and Economics

Association annual conference, Toronto, Canada.Parisi, F. (1998). “The Market for Votes: Coasian Bargaining in an Arrovian Setting.” George Mason Law

Review. 6, 745.Parisi, F. (2001). “Political Coase Theorem.” GMU Law and Economics Working Paper Series.Peltzman, S. (1990). “How Efficient Is the Voting Market?” Journal of Law and Economics. 33, 27–63.Penny, T. J. (1997). “Pork Is Safe from This President’s Line-Item Vetoes.” Wall Street Journal. Nov. 13, A22.Riggs, R. A. (1973). “Separation of Powers: Congressional Riders and the Veto Power.” University of Michigan

Journal of Law Ref. 6, 735, 743–745.Riker, W. H. (1982). Liberalism Against Populism: A Confrontation Between the Theory of Democracy and

the Theory of Social Choice, San Francisco: Freeman Publishing.Rogers, D. (1997). “Clinton Warns He’s Prepared to Veto Spending Bills If Changes Aren’t Made.” Wall Street

Journal, Oct. 2.Rowley, C. K. (1993). Public Choice, 3 vol. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar.Schwartz, Th. (1977). “Collective Choice, Separation of Issues and Vote Trading.” American Political Science

Review. 72.Shubik, M. (1982). Game Theory in the Social Sciences: Concepts and Solutions, 1st ed. Boston: M.I.T. Press.Stigler, G. J. (1971). “Economic Competition and Political Competition.” Public Choice 13, 91–106.Tullock, G. (1981). “Why so Much Stability?” Public Choice. 37, 189–202.