James Buchanan and Public Choice: Implications for Economics and Political Philosophy

Abstract

This essay analyzes the three fundamental premises underpinning public choice theory, based on the work of Nobel Prize winner James Buchanan. It first explores the three premises by analyzing Buchanan’s contractarian thought, illuminating what he considered its key elements: methodological individualism, behavioral symmetry, and politics as an exchange. Thereafter, the essay examines three major economic, political, and philosophical implications that can be derived from such a vision. The essay concludes by highlighting that under Buchanan’s contractarian paradigm, we can derive significant concepts and original theoretical implications concerning how we can think and reconfigure a pluralist social order compatible with the principles of liberal democracy and association.