Brad Taylor

Seasteading: Competitive Governments on the Ocean

We argue that those advocating the reform of current political systems in order to promote jurisdictional competition are in a catch‐22: jurisdictional competition has the potential to improve policy, but reforms to increase competition must be enacted by currently uncompetitive governments. If such governments could be relied upon to enact such reforms, they would likely not be necessary. Since existing governments are resistant to change, we argue that the only way to overcome the deep problem of reform is by focusing on the bare‐metal layer of society – the technological environment in which governments are embedded. Developing the technology to create settlements in international waters, which we refer to as seasteading, changes the technological environment rather than attempting to push against the incentives of existing political systems. As such, it sidesteps the problem of reform and is more likely than more conventional approaches to significantly alter the policy equilibrium.

The Lack of Competition in Governance as an Impediment to Regional Development in Australia

Regional Australia faces many and diverse challenges and opportunities. Given that one-size-fits-all policy solutions are not appropriate for these diverse conditions, I argue that increasing interjurisdictional competition can foster regional development and resilience. If individuals and businesses are able to ‘vote with their feet’ for the local jurisdictions they prefer, market-like incentives are brought to bear on government. This would limit government power, enable lower-risk policy experimentation, make government more responsive to citizen needs and allow for policy more suited to local circumstances.

Exit and the Epistemic Quality of Voice

Debates over the relationship between exit and voice in politics have focused on the quantity of citizen voice and its effectiveness in influencing public decisions. The epistemic quality of voice, on the other hand, has received much less attention. This article uses rational choice theory to argue that public sector exit options can lead to more informed and less biased expressions of voice. Whereas voters have weak incentives to gather and process information, exit options provide sharper epistemic incentives to produce knowledge which can spill over into voting decisions. Exit can thus improve democratic competence.

Does Parchment Matter? Constitutions and Freedom

Despite much theoretical discussion the enforceability of constitutional constraints, the question has received little empirical attention. After discussing the theoretical arguments for and against the proposition that constitutions are capable of protecting individual liberty against encroachment by the state, I use the Reporters without Borders index of press freedom and a content analysis of national constitutions to ask whether constitutions protect freedom. I find that, controlling for a number of other factors, constitutional prohibition of censorship is correlated with higher levels of press freedom, and that constitutions seem to be most effective at times when liberty is most at risk. Constitutions, though, are not binding rules which preclude particular actions by government, but as constraints which reduce the likelihood of certain political outcomes. The results reveal both the strengths and limitations of the constitutionalist project of James M. Buchanan and other Pubic Choice scholars.