Unanimous Constitutional Consent and the Immigration Problem

This paper utilizes the cross-cutting cleavages approach to evaluate the probability of a unanimous constitutional consent and, based on these results, discusses the implications of immigration on an existing constitutional consent. It is shown that previous conclusions of beneficial effects stemmin...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Public choice 2005-07, Vol.125 (1/2), p.151-170
Main Authors: Josten, Stefan D., Zimmermann, Klaus W.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Civil society
Coercion
Collectivities
Compensation
Consensus
Consent
Constitutional law
Constitutionalism
Constitutions
Cost efficiency
Decision making
Decision Models
Economic theory
Ethics
Evaluation
Federalism
Immigration
Immigration policy
Minimization of cost
Minority rights
Minority voters
Normativity
Political theory
Preferences
Probability
Public choice
Public finance
Public goods
Public opinion
Social norms
Society
Studies
Voting
Voting Behavior
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Summary:This paper utilizes the cross-cutting cleavages approach to evaluate the probability of a unanimous constitutional consent and, based on these results, discusses the implications of immigration on an existing constitutional consent. It is shown that previous conclusions of beneficial effects stemming from a multitude of political dimensions for a unanimous constitutional consent crucially depend on the assumption of an extreme mode of intrapersonal compensation of constitutional majority and minority preferences. These conclusions are reversed once you consider more restrictive schemes of such intrapersonal compensation. Since, furthermore, the probability of constitutional consent unambiguously falls with a growing size of the collectivity, only a policy of selective and controlled immigration will be able to guarantee with regard to the existing cleavages of a society that the existing constitutional consent will not be damaged or destroyed, whereas uncontrolled immigration, possibly based on ethical norms, will risk the breakdown of any constitutional consent in a society.
ISSN:0048-5829
1573-7101
DOI:10.1007/s11127-005-3413-8