This paper reports recent events in Iceland where the political agents of oligarchs didn't even bother to try to influence, let alone contest, a national referendum on a new constitution because, if they didn't like the result, they would simply find ways to nullify the outcome ex post. The...

This paper maps the use of digital tools in the Icelandic constitutional revision process of 2011 and discusses its aftermath in subsequent years. Although causal links between the digital elements of the process and the content and fate of the constitutional bill are impossible to establish, an...

In this paper, the introduction of direct-democratic decision-making in all EU decisions is considered when it is feasible without prohibitively increasing decision-making costs. We start with the contractarian argument that each constitution is a contract joining the citizens of a state and...

To understand Iceland's political situation, it is necessary to consider the historical background to the post-crash constitutional revision process launched in 2009. Also, the paper offers a brief account of some aspects of the constitution-making process during 2010-2013, including the work of...

This paper investigates the merits of different democratic institutions when politics is uni-dimensional, there is uncertainty both about the preferences of the future electorate and the future polarization of political parties, and politicians have better information about the state of the...

This paper does three things. First, based on a limited number of theoretically established dimensions, it proposes a new de facto indicator for the rule of law. It is the first such indicator to take the quality of legal norms explicitly into account. Second, using this indicator we shed new...

Africa's interior-to-coast roads are well suited to export natural resources, but not to support regional trade. Are they the optimal response to geography and comparative advantage, or the result of suboptimal political distortions? We investigate the political determinants of road paving in...

This paper reviews aspects of the constitution making process in Iceland after the financial collapse of 2008, emphasizing the differences between the provisional constitution of 1944 when Iceland separated unilaterally from Nazi-occupied Denmark and Denmark's 1849 constitution which served,...