IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/kyklos/v77y2024i4p1084-1102.html

The nature and significance of the political ideal of the Rule of Law: Hayek, Buchanan, and beyond

Author

Listed:
  • Hartmut Kliemt

Abstract

Hayek and Buchanan endorsed Böhm's “private law society” as expressive of the ideal of a government of laws, and not of men. But they also acknowledged that among the many, the enforceability of legal custom, adjudication, and legislation must be politically guaranteed by a state. Due to unavoidable state‐involvement, risks of excessive rent‐seeking and authoritarian arbitrary government loom large once “rules of rule change” enable sophisticated forms of ruling by law. Even if in WEIRDS (Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, Democratic, Societies) legal rules are enacted, modified, and derogated exclusively according to legal “rules of rule change,” the prevalence of the key attributes of “generality, certainty, and equality of enforcement” of the Rule of Law is in no way guaranteed. — The paper addresses this and the role, nature, and significance of constraining ruling by law through practicing the “political ideal of the Rule of Law”.

Suggested Citation

  • Hartmut Kliemt, 2024. "The nature and significance of the political ideal of the Rule of Law: Hayek, Buchanan, and beyond," Kyklos, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 77(4), pages 1084-1102, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:kyklos:v:77:y:2024:i:4:p:1084-1102
    DOI: 10.1111/kykl.12407
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/kykl.12407
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/kykl.12407?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. William A. Niskanen, 2006. "Book Review: Why I, Too, Am Not a Conservative: The Normative Vision of Classical Liberalism," Cato Journal, Cato Journal, Cato Institute, vol. 26(3), pages 612-614, Fall.
    2. Otto Lehto & John Meadowcroft, 2021. "Welfare without rent seeking? Buchanan’s demogrant proposal and the possibility of a constitutional welfare state," Constitutional Political Economy, Springer, vol. 32(2), pages 145-164, June.
    3. Peter Bernholz, 2017. "Totalitarianism, Terrorism and Supreme Values," Studies in Public Choice, Springer, number 978-3-319-56907-9, September.
    4. Hartmut Kliemt, 1993. "On justifying a minimum welfare state," Constitutional Political Economy, Springer, vol. 4(2), pages 159-172, March.
    5. Cornes,Richard & Sandler,Todd, 1996. "The Theory of Externalities, Public Goods, and Club Goods," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521477185, August.
    6. Daniele Bertolini, 2019. "Constitutionalizing Leviathan: A Critique of Buchanan’s Conception of Lawmaking," Homo Oeconomicus: Journal of Behavioral and Institutional Economics, Springer, vol. 36(1), pages 41-69, October.
    7. Alan Hamlin & Zofia Stemplowska, 2012. "Theory, Ideal Theory and the Theory of Ideals," Political Studies Review, Political Studies Association, vol. 10(1), pages 48-62, January.
    8. Gilboa,Itzhak, 2009. "Theory of Decision under Uncertainty," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521741231, Enero-Abr.
    9. Max Albert, 2022. "How to Escape from Model Platonism in Economics: Critical Assumptions, Robust Conclusions, and Approximate Explanations," Homo Oeconomicus: Journal of Behavioral and Institutional Economics, Springer, vol. 39(1), pages 37-68, October.
    10. Viktor J. Vanberg, 2024. "Competitive federalism, individual autonomy, and citizen sovereignty," Kyklos, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 77(4), pages 1048-1068, November.
    11. Viktor J. Vanberg, 2022. "The Economic Tradition and the Problem of Social Order: Hans Albert’s Critique of Welfare Economics and the Perspective of Constitutional Political Economy," Homo Oeconomicus: Journal of Behavioral and Institutional Economics, Springer, vol. 39(1), pages 83-111, October.
    12. Gerd Gigerenzer, 1997. "Bounded Rationality: Models of Fast and Frugal Inference," Swiss Journal of Economics and Statistics (SJES), Swiss Society of Economics and Statistics (SSES), vol. 133(2), pages 201-218, June.
    13. Brennan, Geoffrey & Hamlin, Alan, 2004. "Analytic Conservatism," British Journal of Political Science, Cambridge University Press, vol. 34(4), pages 675-691, October.
    14. Geoffrey Brennan & Hartmut Kliemt, 2022. "An Albertian View of Buchanan’s Contractarianism," Homo Oeconomicus: Journal of Behavioral and Institutional Economics, Springer, vol. 39(1), pages 69-82, October.
    15. Hans Albert, 2010. "The economic tradition and the constitution of science," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 144(3), pages 401-411, September.
    16. Robert Sugden, 2024. "Hayek, Buchanan and the justification of the market," Kyklos, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 77(4), pages 1069-1083, November.
    17. Max Albert, 2017. "How Bayesian Rationality Fails and Critical Rationality Works," Homo Oeconomicus: Journal of Behavioral and Institutional Economics, Springer, vol. 34(4), pages 313-341, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Quintas, André & Boettke, Peter, 2026. "Crony capitalism, populism, and democracy," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 241(C).
    2. Viktor J. Vanberg, 2024. "Competitive federalism, individual autonomy, and citizen sovereignty," Kyklos, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 77(4), pages 1048-1068, November.
    3. Robert Sugden, 2024. "Hayek, Buchanan and the justification of the market," Kyklos, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 77(4), pages 1069-1083, November.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Geoffrey Brennan & Hartmut Kliemt, 2023. "Politics as Exchange?," Homo Oeconomicus: Journal of Behavioral and Institutional Economics, Springer, vol. 40(1), pages 39-59, December.
    2. Max Albert, 2022. "How to Escape from Model Platonism in Economics: Critical Assumptions, Robust Conclusions, and Approximate Explanations," Homo Oeconomicus: Journal of Behavioral and Institutional Economics, Springer, vol. 39(1), pages 37-68, October.
    3. Robert Sugden, 2024. "Hayek, Buchanan and the justification of the market," Kyklos, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 77(4), pages 1069-1083, November.
    4. Hartmut Kliemt, 2023. "The logical foundations of constitutional democracy between legal positivism and natural law theory," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 195(3), pages 269-281, June.
    5. christoph Engel, 2005. "Voice over IP. Competition Policy and Regulation," Discussion Paper Series of the Max Planck Institute for Behavioral Economics 2005_26, Max Planck Institute for Behavioral Economics.
    6. Johan Eyckmans & Michael Finus, 2006. "New roads to international environmental agreements: the case of global warming," Environmental Economics and Policy Studies, Springer;Society for Environmental Economics and Policy Studies - SEEPS, vol. 7(4), pages 391-414, March.
    7. Hsieh, Chia-Chun & Ma, Zhiming & Novoselov, Kirill E., 2019. "Accounting conservatism, business strategy, and ambiguity," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 74(C), pages 41-55.
    8. Andrew B. Whitford & Derrick Anderson, 2021. "Governance landscapes for emerging technologies: The case of cryptocurrencies," Regulation & Governance, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 15(4), pages 1053-1070, October.
    9. Cerreia-Vioglio, Simone & Dillenberger, David & Ortoleva, Pietro, 2020. "An explicit representation for disappointment aversion and other betweenness preferences," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 15(4), November.
    10. Christopher P. Chambers & Federico Echenique & Eran Shmaya, 2014. "The Axiomatic Structure of Empirical Content," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 104(8), pages 2303-2319, August.
    11. Nicola Acocella & Giovanni Di Bartolomeo, 2013. "Population location, commuting and local public goods: A political economy approach," CIMEO Working Paper Series 105, Centre for Investigation and Modelling of Experimental Observations (CIMEO).
    12. Alonso, José Antonio, 2007. "Inequality, institutions and progress: a debate between history and the present," Revista CEPAL, Naciones Unidas Comisión Económica para América Latina y el Caribe (CEPAL), December.
    13. Jin Cao & Loran Chollete, 2013. "Monetary policy and financial stability in the long run," Working Paper 2013/21, Norges Bank.
    14. Cornes Richard & Sandler Todd, 2000. "Pareto-Improving Redistribution and Pure Public Goods," German Economic Review, De Gruyter, vol. 1(2), pages 169-186, May.
    15. David Kelsey & Frank Milne, 2006. "Externalities, monopoly and the objective function of the firm," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 29(3), pages 565-589, November.
    16. Matteo Migheli & Giovanni B. Ramello, 2014. "Open Access Journals & Academics’ Behaviour," ICER Working Papers 03-2014, ICER - International Centre for Economic Research.
    17. Edi Karni & Marie-Louise Vier?, 2013. ""Reverse Bayesianism": A Choice-Based Theory of Growing Awareness," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 103(7), pages 2790-2810, December.
    18. Klaus Wälde, 2016. "Emotion Research in Economics," Working Papers 1611, Gutenberg School of Management and Economics, Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz.
    19. Vaughn Bryan Baltzly, 2024. "Two (lay) dogmas on externalities," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 201(3), pages 471-494, December.
    20. Rojas, Cristian & Cinner, Joshua, 2020. "Do market and trust contexts spillover into public goods contributions? Evidence from experimental games in Papua New Guinea," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 174(C).

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:kyklos:v:77:y:2024:i:4:p:1084-1102. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/journal.asp?ref=0023-5962 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.