{"title":"Leader characteristics and constitutional compliance","authors":"","doi":"10.1016/j.ejpoleco.2023.102423","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>While research in constitutional economics has made important progress in recent decades, the factors determining whether a constitution is complied with have only received scant attention. We contribute to that narrow literature by studying how personal traits of political leaders are associated with constitutional compliance. Compliance levels of 943 political leaders between 1950 and 2010 can be explained by their education, entry into office, political experience, military background, and whether they are members of extreme left-wing parties. Specifically, under former military officers and Communist leaders, constitutional compliance is significantly lower. The combined effect of these two traits corresponds to the difference between democracy and nondemocracy. This implies a difficult normative question, which we discuss in our conclusion: Should constitutions set entry barriers for high political offices that are based on leader characteristics?</p></div>","PeriodicalId":51439,"journal":{"name":"European Journal of Political Economy","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":2.3000,"publicationDate":"2024-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"European Journal of Political Economy","FirstCategoryId":"96","ListUrlMain":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0176268023000678","RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q2","JCRName":"ECONOMICS","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
While research in constitutional economics has made important progress in recent decades, the factors determining whether a constitution is complied with have only received scant attention. We contribute to that narrow literature by studying how personal traits of political leaders are associated with constitutional compliance. Compliance levels of 943 political leaders between 1950 and 2010 can be explained by their education, entry into office, political experience, military background, and whether they are members of extreme left-wing parties. Specifically, under former military officers and Communist leaders, constitutional compliance is significantly lower. The combined effect of these two traits corresponds to the difference between democracy and nondemocracy. This implies a difficult normative question, which we discuss in our conclusion: Should constitutions set entry barriers for high political offices that are based on leader characteristics?
期刊介绍:
The aim of the European Journal of Political Economy is to disseminate original theoretical and empirical research on economic phenomena within a scope that encompasses collective decision making, political behavior, and the role of institutions. Contributions are invited from the international community of researchers. Manuscripts must be published in English. Starting 2008, the European Journal of Political Economy is indexed in the Social Sciences Citation Index published by Thomson Scientific (formerly ISI).