Bicameralism and majoritarian equilibrium

Recent papers have established that bicameralism can support a non-empty core in majority voting games in two dimensional policy spaces. We generalise this result to the n-dimensional case, and provide a discussion of multi-cameralism. Bicameralism generates a core of potentially stable equilibria by institutionalising opposition between mutually oriented median voters, this provides a clear link with the standard median voter model and with more traditional analyses of bicameralism.An earlier version of this paper (Brennan and Hamlin, 1990), written in ignorance of the work of Hammond and Miller (1987, 1990), benefited from comments at the Public Choice Society meetings, Tucson; the European Public Choice Society meetings, Meersburg; the Center for Study of Public Choice, and the Universities of Chicago and Oxford. Hamlin is grateful for the support of visiting fellowships at ANU and All Souls College, Oxford.     

Editorial introduction to the China–EU Law Journal special issue on the EU–China Investment Treaty in Interdisciplinary Perspective

China-EU Law Journal -     

Reading Václav Havel in the Age of Trump

This paper explores the explicit self-deprecation in Vaclav Havel’s writings in order to outline a unique contribution to thinking about resistance contained in Havel’s oeuvre. What Havel offers is a timely critique of messianic political gestures. I will focus on how Havel’s self-deprecation offers a subtle but significant critique of western politics which also contains the kernal of a virtue ethics of sorts, instead of a blueprint for radical action. I will also explain the important and related critique of messianic politics entailed in Havel’s thought and outline the significance of this critique for the current political climate.