Displacing your Principal. Two Historical Case Studies of Some Interest for the Constitutional Future of Europe

The framework of public decisions, and particularly the provision of law, is seen here as an agency contract. What distinguishes this contract is the nature of the right delegated to the agent: The capacity to make law gives the opportunity to take advantage of the incompleteness of the constitutional contract. The agency relationship may be loosened or even reversed. This article tries to draw some lessons from the English and American history in that matter and applies them to the making of the future European State.