Most of the constitutional political economy literature has followed Buchanan and Tullock by remaining inherently normative, but a small literature has appeared that examines the properties of constitutions by considering the motives of the people who actually write the constitution. This...

This article commemorates James M. Buchanan and his contributions to public choice and constitutional political economy. It focuses on what Buchanan had to say about constraining the State, or as he often referred to it, Leviathan. It concentrates on a handful of his major works that I think...