When politicians are provided with insufficient incentives by the democratic election mechanism, we show that social welfare can be improved by threshold contracts. A threshold incentive contract stipulates a performance level which a politican must reach in order to have the right to stand for reelection. Read my lips would turn into read my contracts. Reelection thresholds can be offered by p...

At the Johannesburg World Summit on Sustainable Development, the science and technology communities, along with other nonstate actors, were singled out as major partners in the quest for sustainability. This is in line with calls for refashioning scientiac expertise into a more transparent, accountable and democratic enterprise. Participatory, civil, citizen, civic, stakeholder and democratic s...

The notion that economic integration will bring cultural integration in its train is only partly valid. As I describe in this article, economic development does make societies less nationalistic and more tolerant, trusting, and democratic. But the broad cultural heritage of a society— Protestant, Roman Catholic, Orthodox, Confucian, or Communist—leaves a lasting imprint on values that endures d...

Over the past half-century, democratic constitutional design has undergone a sea change. After the Second World War, newly independent countries tended simply to copy the basic constitutional rules of their former colonial masters, without seriously considering alternatives. Today, constitution writers choose more deliberately among a wide array of constitutional models, with various advantages...

With war in the Middle East and the prospect of terrorist attacks at sites ranging from major airports to the local shopping mall, it may be appropriate to remind ourselves that much of the world is experiencing an extended period of peace. Indeed, developed countries have not fought each other since the Second World War. This peace is unusual because powerful nations are historically the most ...