Comparative Politics: The Principal-Agent Perspective / Edition 1

by Jan-Erik Lane

Overview

Starting from the principal-agent perspective, this book offers a new analysis of government. It interprets political institutions as devices designed to solve the omnipresent principal-agent game in politics. In other words how to select, instruct, monitor and evaluate political agents or elites so that they deliver in accordance with the needs and preferences of their principal: the population.

This book explores whether there are any evolutionary mechanisms in politics which guide mankind towards the rule of law regime, domestically and globally. It combines a cross-sectional approach with a longitudinal one.

Comparing the extent of the rule of law among states, using a set of data from 150 countries concerning political and social variables, the author seeks to understand why there is such a marked difference among states. Taking a state-centred perspective and looking at countries with a population larger than one million people during the post Second World War period, the book examines:

 
• The stability and performance of states
 
• The conditions for the rule of law regime: economic, social, cultural and institutional ones
 
• The evolution of governments towards rule of law
 

Comparative Politics - The Principle-Agent Perspective will be of interest to students and scholars of comparative politics, government, political theory and law.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780415586788
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	06/10/2010
Series:	Routledge Research in Comparative Politics
Pages:	332
Product dimensions:	6.12(w) x 9.19(h) x (d)

About the Author

Jan Erik-Lane, University of Freiburg.

Table of Contents

Introduction: Micro Foundations of Comparative Politics Section 1: States: Stability and Performance 1. The States of the World 2. Rule of Law Section 2: Conditions that Support Rule of Law 3. Environmental Factors 4. Impact of Political Institutions 5. Changing Principal-Agent Institutions 6. Party System Instability and Volatility from the Principal-Agent Perspective Section 3: Towards Evolutionary Regime Theory 7. Regime Fitness on the Survival of Polities 8. The Concept of a Polity: From the City-State to the Empire 9. Ancient Empires, Oriental Despotism or the Patrimonial State 10. Feudalism: Political, Economical and Modern 11. The Nation-State and Colonial Empires 12. The Regionalisation of the State. Conclusion: Evolutionary Advantage of Rule of Law Regimes