VII Summer School (2004)

The Design and Consequences of Constitutions

A summer school organized by the University of the Basque Country and the Urrutia Elejalde Foundation.
San Sebastián, July 12-14(2004)

Directors: Salvador Barberá (UAB) & Carlos Mulas Granados (UCM) Coordination: Alfonso Dubois (UPV/EHU+UEF) & David Teira (USAL+UEF)

The constitution of a State (or a group of States, like the European Union) has a direct effect in the functioning of the political institutions it creates. In fact, constitutions affect the rules of the game, the government's duration, the tendency to form coalition governments, etc. In addition, constitutions have an influence in the behaviour of consumers, producers and other agents in the economy and the society. This is why the consequences of different constitutional designs are not restricted to the political arena, but also reach the economic sphere. As a consequence, the study of constitutions is a very interesting topic for both economists and political scientists. Therefore, this course has an interdisciplinary character, and will deal with topics related to the design of constitutions, from both its normative and positive perspectives as they appear in the most relevant literature which investigates the observable consequences of alternative constitutional designs. From both points of view, normative and positive, we will examine how different constitutional designs affect different aspects of the political and economic reality such as bicameralism, political and economic decentralisation or the voting system of different branches of government, from the executive to the legislative.

Lecturers: Carles BOIX (University of Chicago), Antonio MERLO (University of Pennsylvania), Annick LARUELLE (Universidad de Alicante), Federico VALENCIANO (UPV/EHU), Jacques CREMER (IDEI, Toulouse), Viktor Vanberg (Universitaet Freiburg), Geoffrey Brennan (Australian National University).

Contributed papers by: Jean-François Caulier | José Fernandez-Albertos | Ruxandra Haradau.

 

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