Law Commons^™

Solving The Bargaining Democracy Problem Using A Constitutional Hierarchy Of Law, Clas Wihlborg

Business Faculty Articles and Research

In the “bargaining democracy” groups form coalitions that are able to grant benefits to themselves through legislation. These benefits may lack popular support. A constitutional hierarchy of conflicting laws is proposed to resolve this democratic problem. In the hierarchy more “rule-oriented” legislation dominate. The hierarchy would create a momentum of the political process towards more rule-oriented legislation and policy debate. The difficulty of defining a rule operationally is overcome by limiting the task of a constitutional court to simply rank conflicting policy actions in terms of criteria for rules.