Polarization in Western democracies and the collapse of centrally planned economies have led to calls for a redefinition of the state's core functions. This collection explores shifting conceptions of constitutional political economy anchoring the state from the viewpoints of theory, systems, and applications, with a view toward identifying why changes may be desirable and how these might be implemented. Nobel Laureate James M. Buchanan offers a foreword to the work and coauthors a chapter on theory of constitutional rules.

This book is about the relationship between different concepts of freedom and happiness. The book's authors distinguish three concepts for which an empirical measure exists: opportunity to choose (negative freedom), capability to choose (positive freedom), and autonomy to choose (autonomy freedom). They also provide a comprehensive account of the relationship between freedom and well-being by comparing channels through which freedoms affect quality of life. The book also explores whether the different conceptions of freedom complement or replace each other in the determination of the level of...

What is freedom? Can we measure it? Does it affect policy? This book develops an original measure of freedom called 'Autonomy Freedom', consistent with J. S. Mill's view of autonomy, and applies it to issues in policy and political design. The work pursues three aims. First, it extends classical liberalism beyond exclusive reliance on negative freedom so as to take autonomous behavior explicitly into account. Second, it grounds on firm conceptual foundations a new standard in the measurement of freedom that can be fruitfully coupled with existing gauges. Third, it shows empirically that...