Politics and institutions

Readings due before class on Monday, April 16, 2018

Important: The PDF of the Olson chapter is posted on Learning Suite.

Required

• James Madison, The Federalist Papers, #10
• Chapter 1 in Mancur Olson, The Logic of Collective ActionMancur Olson, The Logic of Collective Action: Public Goods and the Theory of Groups (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1971).
  
  

  • Like Ostrom’s stuff on CPRs, this one is a little long (though deceptively so—there are a ton of really long footnotes) and game theoretical, but also exceptionally important. You can skim through lots of it (especially the mathy sections). Olson conveniently has nontechnical summaries after the more technical sections, so focus on those more than the ancient game theory math.

    Really, you shouldn’t spend an inordinate amount of time with this chapter.
• Planet Money, “A Former Lobbyist Tells All,” Episode 341, January 27, 2012
• LSE Research: Washington’s Revolving Door
• John Sides, “A new experiment shows how money buys access to Congress,” The Washington Post’s Monkey Cage, March 11, 2014

Highly recommended

• Freakonomics Radio, “There’s A War On Sugar. Is It Justified?,” April 26, 2017
  • This features BYU(!), so listen to the first few minutes for sure—the rest is also fascinating.