Political Science 1020E Chapter Notes -Pork Barrel, Vote Trading, Economic Efficiency

• School: Western University
• Department: Political Science
• Course: Political Science 1020E
• Professor: Bruce Morrison

Document Summary

Public choice theorists do no have a particularly well thought-out account of what the state is. Practitioners constantly slip between talking about the state, the government and the public sector without ever indicating whether these are meant to refer to different entities. What they do however possess is a distinctive and distinctively hostile account of what the state does and why it does it. Public choice theorists regard the state as a source of inefficiency as the science of political failure. The rapidly accumulating developments in the theory of public choice, have all been influential in modifying the way that moderm man views government and political proessesat all levelslimiting the expansion of government power. For whilst the heyday of public choice theory may now have passes, this still remains a intellectually and politically influential approach whose analysis and prescriptions deserve to be taken seriously whether or not they are thought valid.