Abstract
The Veil of Ignorance project (VOIP) looks at constitutions as discourses to infer the motivations of constitution drafters from the content of the very text they contributed to write (Imbeau 2009). In particular, the project aims at measuring the extent to which constitution drafters worked under uncertainty. This chapter introduces to the theory and method of the VOIP project and presents some preliminary results. We proceed in three steps. First, we expose the theoretical foundations of the project based on Buchanan’s interaction approach. Second, we describe the content analysis method that we used to compare the discursive content of 16 constitutions. Third, we submit some of our empirical results to validity tests before concluding.
We are indebted to several persons who commented previous versions of this paper: Roger Congleton, Emma Galli, Randall Holcombe, Alan Lockard, Agnes Strauss, George Tridimas, Frédéric Varone, and Stefan Voigt. We assume responsibility for any remaining shortcoming.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.
Buying options
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Learn about institutional subscriptionsNotes
- 1.
Weber wrote: «Something is “a ‘state’ if and insofar as its administrative staff successfully upholds a claim on the monopoly of the legitimate use of violence in the enforcement of its order” (1964: 154).
- 2.
Here, we ordered them according to the extent to which they can be manipulated.
- 3.
The Canadian constitutional experience of the 1970s and 1980s witnessed such reconsideration. In 1971, the Victoria Charter proposed a set of amendments to the Canadian constitution defining, among others, a new amending formula. The Charter was dropped because one provincial premier rejected it. The convention was that such constitutional decisions required unanimity. However, the 1981 agreement was adopted with the support of only nine of the ten provinces. The Supreme Court later ruled that this agreement though unconventional was not illegal [(1981) 1 S.C.R. 753]. In 1992, the Charlottetown Accord including a new set of constitutional amendments was dropped after a failed referendum even though no mention is made to a referendum in the amending formula adopted in 1981. These two changes in constitutional conventions were made while the decision-making process was in progress.
- 4.
- 5.
In Thomas Kuhn’s Structure of Scientific Revolutions, ‘prescience’ is a period in which «different men confronting the same range of phenomena, but not usually all the same particular phenomena, describe and interpret them in different ways […] [S]uch initial divergences should ever largely disappear […with] the triumph of one of the pre-paradigm schools, which, because of its own characteristic beliefs and preconceptions, emphasized only some special part of the too sizable and inchoate pool of information» (Kuhn 1970: 17).
- 6.
See, for example, the review presented by Haugaard (2002).
- 7.
For a synthesis of this literature, see (Imbeau and Couture 2010).
- 8.
Of course, investors may also exercise power over the minister of Finance and make him offer higher interest rates in exchange for their wealth, something he would not do otherwise. It is not always easy to determine who exercises power over whom in this example. When a government has the political capacity not to borrow money, i.e., when it can increase taxes or decrease expenditures without fearing an electoral backlash, then it may be in a position to exercise power over investors. But the more a government indulges in deficit financing the more vulnerable it becomes to investors and to their demands until it has no other alternative but to comply or to default. I thank Alan Lockard for bringing this point to my attention.
- 9.
For examples of each of the nine types of instrumental power, see (Imbeau and Couture 2010: 58–59).
- 10.
Abduction, a term first introduced by the American philosopher Charles Peirce, is a form of logical reasoning that goes from the data to an explanation that accounts for the data. Deduction derives a consequence from a cause. Abduction reverses the process and derives a cause from a consequence. When the cause is unobservable, like the opacity of the veil of uncertainty in a decision-making process, an abductive reasoning allows one to infer the cause on the basis of the consequence. For a discussion of Peirce’s contribution in the context of economic institutionalism, see (Mirowski 1987); for an application to constitutional decision-making, see (Imbeau 2009).
- 11.
For an extended description with computing formulas, see (Krippendorff 2004: 221–241). Andrew Hayes provides an SPSS macro for computing a Krippendorff alpha on his Web site http://www.comm.ohio-state.edu/ahayes/. For details about the working of this macro, see (Hayes and Krippendorff 2007).
- 12.
Since we did not have a «standard», we could not perform the accuracy test. However, the supervision of the coders by the main investigator all along the training process gives an assurance that the unitizing and coding are accurate.
- 13.
Coders worked full time in July and August and part time from September to December 2011.
- 14.
One should use caution when comparing the length of constitutional texts because of the use of versions in French and in English. Texts in French usually count a higher number of words than their equivalent/translation in English. However, this has no effect on the identification of units of analysis which are «Power relations».
References
Bachrach P, Baratz MS (1962) Two faces of power. Am Polit Sci Rev 56(4):947–952
Bachrach P, Baratz MS (1963) Decisions and nondecisions: an analytical framework. Am Polit Sci Rev 57(3):632–642
Bardhan P (1991) On the concept of power in economics. Econ Politics 3(3):265–277
Bartlett R (1989) Economics and power: an inquiry into human relations and markets. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge
Beard CA (2004 [1913]) An economic interpretation of the constitution of the United States, Dover Publications Inc, Mineola
Borrelli SA, Royed TJ (1995) Government “strength” and budget deficits in advanced democracies. Eur J Polit Res 28:225–260
Buchanan JM (1964) What should economists do? South Econ J 30(3):213–222
Buchanan JM (2008) Constitutional political economy. In: Rowley CK, Schneider FG (eds) Readings in public choice and constitutional political economy. Springer, New York, pp 281–294
Congleton RD (2011) Perfecting parliament: constitutional reform, liberalism, and the rise of western democracy. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge
Congleton RD, Swedenborg B (eds) (2006) Democratic constitutional design and public policy: analysis and evidence. MIT Press, Cambridge
Dahl RA (1957) The concept of power. Behav Sci 2(3):201–215
Dowding KM (1991) Rational choice and political power. Edward Elgar, Aldershot
Dowding KM (1996) Power. Open University Press, Buckingham
Dugger WM (1980). Power: an institutional framework of analysis. J Econ Issues (Association for Evolutionary Economics) 14(4):897
Easton D (1960) The political system. Alfred A. Knopf, New York
Göhler G (2009) Power to and power over. In: Clegg SR, Haugaard M (eds) The Sage handbook of power. Sage, Los Angeles, pp 27–39
Gordon S (1999) Controlling the state: constitutionalism from ancient Athens to today. Harvard University Press, Cambridge
Haugaard M (ed) (2002) Power: a reader. Manchester University Press, Manchester
Hayes AF, Krippendorff K (2007) Answering the call for a standard reliability measure for coding data. Commun Methods Measures 1(1):77–89
Imbeau LM (2007) Leviathan or Geryon? Safeguards against power abuse in democratic societies. In: Marciano A, Josselin J-M (eds) Democracy, freedom, and coercion: a law and economics approach. Edward Elgar, Cheltenham, pp 171–191
Imbeau LM (2009) Testing the «veil of ignorance» hypothesis in constitutional choice: a «walk-talk» approach. J Public Financ Public Choice 26(1):3–21
Imbeau LM, Couture J (2010) Pouvoir et politiques publiques. In: Paquin S, Bernier L, Lachapelle G (eds) L’analyse des politiques publiques. Presses de l’Université de Montréal, Montréal, pp 37–72
Imbeau LM, Jacob S (2011) Is the “veil of ignorance” in constitutional choice a myth? An empirical exploration informed by a theory of power. In: Marciano A (ed) Constitutional mythologies. Springer, Dordrecht
Klein PA (1980) Confronting power in economics: a pragmatic evaluation. J Econ Issues (Association for Evolutionary Economics) 14(4):871–896
Krippendorff K (2004) Content analysis: an introduction to its methodology. CA, Sage Publications, Thousand Oaks
Kuhn TS (1970) The structure of scientific revolutions. Int Encycl Unified Sci 2(2):1–210
Lukes S (1974) Power: a radical view. Macmillan, London
Lukes S (2005) Power: a radical view. Palgrave, Houndmills
Marciano A (2009) Buchanan’s constitutional political economy: exchange vs. choice in economics and in politics. Const Polit Econ 20(1):42–56
Marshall MG, Jaggers K et al (2010) Polity IV project: political regime characteristics and transitions, 1800–2010, center for systemic peace
McGuire RA (1988) Constitution making: a rational choice model of the federal convention of 1787. Am J Polit Sci 32(2):483–522
McGuire RA, Ohsfeldt RL (1989) Self-interest, agency theory, and political voting behavior: the ratification of the United States Constitution. Am Econ Rev 79(1):219–234
Mirowski P (1987) The philosophical bases of institutionalist economics. J Econ Issues (Association for Evolutionary Economics) 21(3):1001–1038
Persson T, Tabellini G (2003) The economic effects of constitutions. The MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts
Riker WH (1984) The heresthetics of constitution-making: the presidency in 1787, with comments on determinism and rational choice. Am Polit Sci Rev 78(1):1–16
Russell B (1962 [1938]) Power: a new social analysis, Allen & Unwin, London
Scheinkman JA (2008) Social interactions (theory). In: Durlauf SN, Blume LE (eds) The new palgrave dictionary of economics online. Palgrave Macmillan, UK
Simon H (1957) Models of man, social and rational. Wiley, New York
Voigt S (2011) Positive constitutional economicsII—a survey of recent developments. Public Choice 146:205–256
Weber M (1964 [1922]) The theory of social and economic organization, Oxford University Press, New York
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Annex: Codebook of the Veil of Ignorance Project (VOIP)
Annex: Codebook of the Veil of Ignorance Project (VOIP)
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2015 Springer International Publishing Switzerland
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Imbeau, L.M., Jacob, S. (2015). Measuring the Opacity of the ‘Veil of Ignorance’ in Constitutions: Theory, Method, and Some Results. In: Imbeau, L., Jacob, S. (eds) Behind a Veil of Ignorance?. Studies in Public Choice, vol 32. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-14953-0_4
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-14953-0_4
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-14952-3
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-14953-0
eBook Packages: Humanities, Social Sciences and LawPolitical Science and International Studies (R0)