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Cited by 1,372

The DOI matches its Crossref record; 9 of the 9 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.

A Transaction Cost Theory of Politics

North, Douglass C.·1990·Journal of Theoretical Politics

Abstract

This essay first specifies and describes the behavioral and information cost assumptions that underlie instrumental rationality and the consequent a-institutional world of neoclassical theory and contrasts these assumptions to those that underpin a theory of institutions and transaction costs. It then explores the characteristics of political markets, characterizing the costs of transacting in political markets and the role of ideology in shaping political choices. Finally, it explores the implications of a transaction cost framework for the performance of polities and economies over time.

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Metadata

Authors
North, D. C.
Venue
Journal of Theoretical Politics
Published
1990-10
Volume
2
Issue
4
Pages
355-367
ISSN
  • 0951-6298 (ISSN-L)
  • 1460-3667
OpenAlex
W2144712004
Cited by
1,372
References
9
FWCI
5.05
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
closed

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CoChat. (2026). Citation check: A Transaction Cost Theory of Politics. https://app.cochat.ai/papers/10.1177/0951692890002004001
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North, D. C. (1990). A Transaction Cost Theory of Politics. Journal of Theoretical Politics. https://doi.org/10.1177/0951692890002004001

Data sources

Bibliographic data: Semantic Scholar, OpenAlex, Crossref.

Contains information from the Semantic Scholar Academic Graph Datasets, made available under the ODC Attribution License (ODC-BY 1.0).

Semantic Scholar’s data is described in: Kinney, R., et al. (2023). The Semantic Scholar Open Data Platform. arXiv:2301.10140.