Elinor Ostrom (2011): “A fundamental lesson that we all learned from Buchanan and Tullock is captured on page 114 of Calculus of Consent where they state:

both decentralization and size factors suggest that when possible, collective action should be organized in small rather than large political units. Organizations in large units may be justified only by the overwhelming importance of the externalities that remain after localized and decentralized collectivization.

I wish I could get that quote put on a poster to be hung on a wall of every university I visit as well as integrated into the textbooks on public policy and urban governance! Somehow, many social scientists have forgotten this core idea.”

Overviews

Wagner, Richard E. 2013. “Choice versus interaction in public choice: Discerning the legacy of the Calculus of Consent“. In Public Choice, Past and Present (pp. 65-79). Springer New York. [link]

Ostrom, Elinor. 2011. “Honoring James Buchanan.” Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization 80(2): 370-373.

Kliemt, Hartmut. 1994. “The calculus of consent after thirty years.” Public Choice 79(3-4): 341-353.

Mitchell, William C. 1989. “The Calculus of Consent: Enduring contributions to public choice and political science.” Public Choice 60(3): 201-210.

Wagner, Richard E. 1988. “The Calculus of Consent: a Wicksellian retrospective.”Public Choice 56(2): 153-166.

Buchanan, James M. 1987. “Justification of the compound republic: The Calculus in retrospect.” Cato Journal 7(2): 305.

Tullock, Gordon 1987. “The Calculus: Postscript after 25 Years”. Cato Journal, 7(2), 313-329.

Expansions of the model

Dougherty, Keith, and Julian Edward. 2011. The calculus of consent and constitutional design. Springer Science & Business Media.

Leeson, Peter T. 2011. “Government, clubs, and constitutions.” Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 80(2), 301-308.

Ostrom, Elinor, and Vincent Ostrom. 2004. “The quest for meaning in public choice.”American Journal of Economics and Sociology 63(1): 105-147.

Buchanan, James M., and Roger D. Congleton. 1998. Politics by principle, not interest: Towards nondiscriminatory democracy. Cambridge University Press.

Schweizer, Urs. 1990. “Calculus of Consent: A game-theoretic perspective.” Journal of Institutional and Theoretical Economics 146(1): 28-54.

Spindler, Zane A. 1990. “Constitutional design for a rent-seeking society: Voting rule choice.” Constitutional Political Economy 1(3): 73-82. [link]

Applications

Holcombe, Randall G. 2014. “Consenting to Collective Action: The Classical Liberal Constitutional Calculus of James M. Buchanan” The Independent Review 18(3): 359–372 [link]

Leeson, Peter T. 2009. “The calculus of piratical consent: the myth of the myth of social contract.” Public Choice 139(3-4): 443-459. [link]

Durant, Robert F., and Jerome S. Legge Jr. 2002. “Politics, public opinion, and privatization in France: Assessing the calculus of consent for market reforms.”Public Administration Review 62(3): 307-323.

Ostrom, Vincent. 1987. The political theory of a compound republic: Designing the American experiment. Lexington Books.

Holcombe, Randall G. 1980. “Contractarian model of the decline in classical liberalism.” Public Choice 35(3): 277-286.

Ostrom, Vincent, and Elinor Ostrom. 1971. “Public choice: A different approach to the study of public administration.” Public Administration Review 31(2): 203-216.

Critical

Sobel, Russell S., and Randall G. Holcombe. 2001. “The unanimous voting rule is not the political equivalent to market exchange.” Public Choice 106(3-4): 233-242.

Guttman, Joel M. 1998. “Unanimity and majority rule: the calculus of consent reconsidered”. European Journal of Political Economy 14(2): 189-207.