noted places considerable conWdence in habituation, or the appearance of
regularity, and serves to increase respect for the rule of law by making it appear
both neutral and determinate in character. However, in Humean fashion, it
reverses the logic of the formal theories of rule of law by suggesting that
regularity and predictability are not necessarily the eVect or product of laws.
Rather it is the observed regularity and predictability of actions that presents the
appearanceof having been generated or ‘‘caused’’ by normative rules or laws.
There are game theoretic and rational choice accounts whose models
‘‘parallel’’ the political distribution of power model and employ the language
of Humean causality and neoclassical economics, examining the ‘‘institutional
equilibria’’ (Weingast 2003 , 109 ) or the ‘‘self-enforcing equilibrium’’ (Maravall
and Przeworski 2003 , 10 ) of power relationships with law seen alternatively as
an ‘‘equlibrium manual’’ or as a rational ‘‘mechanism’’ shared by all (Maravall
and Przeworski 2003 , 4 , 9 , 5 , 10 ; Manin 1994 , 57 ). In Barry Weingast’s model, for
example, the constitution is ‘‘a useful device for coordinating actions of
electoral losers when the government engages in excessive redistribution or
excessive manipulation of future electoral chances.’’ (Przeworski 2003 , 139 ;
Weingast 1997 , 261 ).
Normatively, Weingast’s view of a constitution as coordinating mechanism
is intended to be as thin as it sounds. In theory, neither constitutional equi-
librium nor the rule of law rely in his model on any actual or preestablished
political or cultural consensus. Citizens need not agree normatively, but only
need tobehaveas if they do by ‘‘solving their coordination problem so that they
can act in concert against potential transgression’’ (Weingast 2003 , 111 ). In such
an economistic view, the equilibrating of powers at stake in constitutionalism
are presumably ones of material resources and organized interests as well as
institutions, and will, like the market, be in continualXux around some
imaginary optimum that will be identiWed as the locus of rule of law. Contest-
ation in this model is then intrinsic and continual. And, in practice, no matter
how neutrally expressed, the actual coordination problems of constitutional
balance are no less conXictual than the political model of prudential compli-
ance and voluntary self-restraint. Normative values underlying constitution-
alism and rule of law would appear to re-enter the picture, however, with
Weingast’s caveat that ‘‘fundamental diVerences about the state make this
coordination diYcult’’ (Weingast 2003 , 111 ). Indeed, such an observation
lends some weight to the normative claim that a constitution—or rather a
coordination device for placing limits on the state—is only as strong as the
moral and political consensus that supports it (Waldron 2004 , 31 ).
326 shannon c. stimson