This paper develops the political economy of the militarization of domestic policing. We analyze the mechanisms through which the “protective state” — where the government utilizes its monopoly on force to protect citizens’ rights — devolves into a “predatory state” which...

This paper provides a critical analysis of public good justification for national defense and empire. Social scientists have made a serious error in taking the public goods approach because they have drained economics from the exercise. Liberals who have embraced the Samuelsonian logic as the...

The U.S. government is the dominant player in the global arms market. An existing literature emphasizes the many benefits of an international U.S.-government arms monopoly including: regional and global balance, stability and security, the advancement of U.S. national interests, and domestic...

This paper provides a rational choice analysis of rituals, defined as predictable and regular observances of acts or procedures, which have a symbolic element resulting in the inculcation or reinforcement of shared values and beliefs. The purpose is threefold. First, to make clear why rituals...

Tim Besley’s Principled Agents is a conceptually challenging work to both traditional welfare economics and the public choice approach identified with James M. Buchanan and Gordon Tullock. Besley’s argumentative strategy is to first admit the cogency of the public choice critique of market...

A crisis is an unexpected event that creates uncertainty and poses a direct or perceived threat to the goals and norms of an organization or society. While crises are ubiquitous, how societies respond to crises, and the way crises affect societies, is largely a matter of constitutional political...

This paper connects the theory of the market process to scholarship on nonviolent action. Doing so advances market process theory by bringing its interaction with nonviolent action and its peace-building potential to the forefront. It advances scholarship on nonviolent action by extending the...

"What is social justice? At this point, there is considerable disagreement. For many, the term social justice is baffling and useless, with no real meaning. Most who use it argue that social justice is the moral fairness of the system of rules and norms that govern society. Do these rules work...

This text provides an assessment of the U.S. government's war on terror. It discusses the origins of the war, discuss whether it can be judged a success or failure, and consider some of the main effects both abroad and within the United States. It concludes with a discussion of several areas for...

Contrary to predictions by many experts, Ukraine’s military has been resilient in the face of the Russian government’s invasion. Drawing on the logic of polycentric defense, this paper helps explain how Ukraine has remained resistant against a conventionally more powerful adversary. We argue...