A Utopia? Government Without Territorial Monopoly

Zurich IEER Working Paper No. 47

22 Pages Posted: 17 Aug 2000

Date Written: June 22, 2000

Abstract

We normally take it for granted: a government or state has its corresponding territory. This paper shows that government need not have a territorial monopoly. The paper advances a practical, constitutional proposal, based on the notion that there are meaningful government units, whose major characteristic is not the terrritorial extension but ist function. The constitution proposal allows for the emergence of governmental organisations, which will be called FOCJ according to the acronym for "Functional, Overlapping, Competing Jurisdictions". Their territory is variable, and they do not have a territorial monopoly over it. Rather, they are in competition with other such FOCJ, and they are, moreover, exposed to political competition.

Keywords: Federalism, Constitutional Economics, Public Choice, Monopoly On Territory

JEL Classification: H11, H4, H5

Suggested Citation

Frey, Bruno S., A Utopia? Government Without Territorial Monopoly (June 22, 2000). Zurich IEER Working Paper No. 47, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=236015 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.236015

Bruno S. Frey (Contact Author)

CREMA ( email )

Südstrasse 11
Zurich, CH 8008
Switzerland
+41 44 380 00 78 (Phone)

University of Basel ( email )

Peter Merian-Weg 6
Basel, 4002
Switzerland

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