Public Choice Reflections on the Measurement of Political Power
Résumé
Social Choice and game theory provide a quantitative assessment of political power notably through power indexes applied to various institutional settings such as Parliaments. Public Choice does not go as far as formal measurement; it rather uses a model of constitutions, namely a principal-agent relationship to describe power delegations from citizens to government and from government to its own agents. Since constitutions are inherently incomplete contracts, the extent of delegation is never fully defined at their inception. Power therefore lies in the allocation and reallocation of prerogatives amongst branches of government under the active scrutiny of constitutional courts.