IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/jothpo/v33y2021i4p430-454.html

On the separation of executive and legislative powers: Executive independence, liberty, and social welfare

Author

Listed:
  • Justin Fox
  • Mattias Polborn

Abstract

We explore the effects of a particular facet of separation of powers—namely, the executive’s independence from the legislature—on maintaining a norm of legislative restraint in which antagonistic factions refrain from passing laws that infringe on their rival’s liberties. Our main result establishes that executive independence may sometimes undermine and at other times facilitate legislative restraint, depending on the probabilities with which the factions hold legislative and executive power. Our results contribute to the larger game-theoretic literature exploring the effects of political institutions; our results also contribute to the literature exploring how institutions designed to protect liberty affect tacit cooperation among rival factions.

Suggested Citation

  • Justin Fox & Mattias Polborn, 2021. "On the separation of executive and legislative powers: Executive independence, liberty, and social welfare," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 33(4), pages 430-454, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:jothpo:v:33:y:2021:i:4:p:430-454
    DOI: 10.1177/09516298211043234
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/09516298211043234
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/09516298211043234?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. Wioletta Dziuda & Antoine Loeper, 2016. "Dynamic Collective Choice with Endogenous Status Quo," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 124(4), pages 1148-1186.
    2. Lisa Bruttel, 2009. "The critical discount factor as a measure for cartel stability?," Journal of Economics, Springer, vol. 96(2), pages 113-136, March.
    3. Torsten Persson & Gérard Roland & Guido Tabellini, 1997. "Separation of Powers and Political Accountability," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 112(4), pages 1163-1202.
    4. Dziuda, Wioletta & Loeper, Antoine, 2018. "Dynamic Pivotal Politics," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 112(3), pages 580-601, August.
    5. Harrington, Joseph Jr., 1992. "The role of party reputation in the formation of policy," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 49(1), pages 107-121, October.
    6. Ting, Michael M., 2012. "Legislatures, Bureaucracies, and Distributive Spending," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 106(2), pages 367-385, May.
    7. Avidit Acharya & Alexander Lee, 2018. "Economic Foundations of the Territorial State System," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 62(4), pages 954-966, October.
    8. Nunnari, Salvatore, 2021. "Dynamic legislative bargaining with veto power: Theory and experiments," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 126(C), pages 186-230.
    9. Avinash Dixit & Gene M. Grossman & Faruk Gul, 2000. "The Dynamics of Political Compromise," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 108(3), pages 531-568, June.
    10. Bendor, Jonathan & Meirowitz, Adam, 2004. "Spatial Models of Delegation," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 98(2), pages 293-310, May.
    11. Thomas Romer & Howard Rosenthal, 1978. "Political resource allocation, controlled agendas, and the status quo," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 33(4), pages 27-43, December.
    12. Dragu, Tiberiu & Fan, Xiaochen & Kuklinski, James, 2014. "Designing Checks and Balances," Quarterly Journal of Political Science, now publishers, vol. 9(1), pages 45-86, March.
    13. Volker Nocke & Lucy White, 2007. "Do Vertical Mergers Facilitate Upstream Collusion?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 97(4), pages 1321-1339, September.
    14. McCarty, Nolan M., 2000. "Presidential Pork: Executive Veto Power and Distributive Politics," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 94(1), pages 117-129, March.
    15. Fang‐Yi Chiou & Lawrence S. Rothenberg, 2014. "The Elusive Search for Presidential Power," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 58(3), pages 653-668, July.
    16. Austen-Smith, David & Dziuda, Wioletta & Harstad, Bård & Loeper, Antoine, 2019. "Gridlock and inefficient policy instruments," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 14(4), November.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Andina-Díaz, Ascensión & Feri, Francesco & Meléndez-Jiménez, Miguel A., 2021. "Institutional flexibility, political alternation, and middle-of-the-road policies," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 204(C).
    2. Gersbach, Hans & Jackson, Matthew O. & Muller, Philippe & Tejada, Oriol, 2023. "Electoral competition with costly policy changes: A dynamic perspective," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 214(C).
    3. Hülya Eraslan & Kirill S. Evdokimov & Jan Zápal, 2022. "Dynamic Legislative Bargaining," Springer Books, in: Emin Karagözoğlu & Kyle B. Hyndman (ed.), Bargaining, chapter 0, pages 151-175, Springer.
    4. Nunnari, Salvatore, 2021. "Dynamic legislative bargaining with veto power: Theory and experiments," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 126(C), pages 186-230.
    5. Lee, Barton E., 2022. "Gridlock, leverage, and policy bundling," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 212(C).
    6. Donaldson, Jason & Piacentino, Giorgia & Malenko, Nadya, 2017. "Deadlock on the Board," CEPR Discussion Papers 12503, Centre for Economic Policy Research.
    7. Howell, William & Shepsle, Kenneth & Wolton, Stephane, 2020. "Executive Absolutism: A Model," MPRA Paper 98221, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    8. Zapal, Jan, 2020. "Simple Markovian equilibria in dynamic spatial legislative bargaining," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 63(C).
    9. Bowen, T. Renee & Chen, Ying & Eraslan, Hülya & Zápal, Jan, 2017. "Efficiency of flexible budgetary institutions," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 167(C), pages 148-176.
    10. Marina Azzimonti & Laura Karpuska & Gabriel Mihalache, 2023. "Bargaining Over Taxes And Entitlements In The Era Of Unequal Growth," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 64(3), pages 893-941, August.
    11. Marina Azzimonti & Gabriel P. Mihalache & Laura Karpuska, 2020. "Bargaining over Taxes and Entitlements," NBER Working Papers 27595, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    12. Delgado-Vega, Álvaro, 2024. "Persistence in power of long-lived parties," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 163(C).
    13. Loeper, Antoine & Dziuda, Wioletta, 2024. "Voters and the trade-off between policy stability and responsiveness," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 232(C).
    14. Anesi, Vincent & Duggan, John, 2018. "Existence and indeterminacy of markovian equilibria in dynamic bargaining games," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 13(2), May.
    15. Pablo T. Spiller, 2003. "The Institutional Foundations of Public Policy: A Transactions Approach with Application to Argentina," The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 19(2), pages 281-306, October.
    16. Falkowski, Jan & Olper, Alessandro, "undated". "Political Competition and Support for Agriculture," 2010 IAMO Forum, June 16-18, 2010, Halle (Saale), Germany 90799, Institute of Agricultural Development in Transition Economies (IAMO).
    17. Rosenthal, Howard & Zame, William R., 2022. "Sequential referenda with sophisticated voters," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 212(C).
    18. Antonio Merlo, 2005. "Whither Political Economy? Theories, Facts and Issues," PIER Working Paper Archive 05-033, Penn Institute for Economic Research, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania, revised 01 Dec 2005.
    19. Kalandrakis, Anastassios, 2004. "A three-player dynamic majoritarian bargaining game," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 116(2), pages 294-322, June.
    20. Carlos Scartascini & Mariano Tommasi & Ernesto Stein, 2010. "Veto Players and Policy Trade-Offs- An Intertemporal Approach to Study the Effects of Political Institutions on Policy," Research Department Publications 4660, Inter-American Development Bank, Research Department.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;

    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:sae:jothpo:v:33:y:2021:i:4:p:430-454. 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: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    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.