Failures of government policies often provoke opposite reactions from citizens; some call for a reversal of the policy, whereas others favor its continuation in stronger form. We offer an explanation of such polarization, based on a natural bimodality of preferences in political and economic contexts and consistent with Bayesian rationality.

Abstract The distinction between equality and sufficiency, much discussed in the distributive justice literature, is here applied to democratic theory. Overlooking this can have significant normative implications, undermining some defences criticisms of political equality, as I show by discussing work three prominent theorists: Thomas Christiano, David Estlund, Mark Warren. Most importantly, Ch...

I provide a critical overview of the literature on political decentralization. After reviewing firstand second-generation theories of federalism, I describe recent empirical studies focusing mainly on determinants of capture and local government accountability emphasized by second-generation theories. The article concludes by describing emerging new issues that deserve more attention in future ...

We study political dynasties in the United States Congress since its inception in 1789. We document historic and geographic patterns in the evolution and pro…le of political dynasties, and analyze the connection between political dynasties and political competition. We also study the self-perpetuation of political elites. We …nd that legislators who enjoy longer tenures are signi…cantly more li...

Political theory, sometimes also called “normative political theory”, is a subfield of the disciplines of philosophy and political science that addresses conceptual, normative, and evaluative questions concerning politics and society, broadly construed. Examples are: When is a society just? What does it mean for its members to be free? When is one distribution of goods socially preferable to an...

Are politicians motivated by policy outcomes or by the perks of office? The answer to this question is central to understanding the behavior of office holders and the policies they produce. Despite the question’s importance, however, the existing literature is not well suited to provide an answer. To shed light on the issue of political motivations I exploit a basic fact: to hold office, one mu...