Constitutions must balance unchecked leader power against legislative paralysis

Evidence

Political institutions influence economic policy, but they are themselves endogenous since they are chosen, in some way, by members of the polity. … An important aspect of institutional design is how much society chooses to delegate unchecked power to its leaders. If, once elected, a leader cannot be restrained, society runs the risk of a tyranny of the majority, if not the tyranny of a dictator. If a leader faces too many ex post checks and balances, legislative action is too often blocked. — Philippe Aghion, Alberto Alesina, and Francesco Trebbi, Endogenous Political Institutions, 5

Categorization

• DEEPTHINKING: Frames constitutional design as a single tunable dial with two catastrophic failure modes on either end, resisting any one-sentence resolution.
• XREF: Connects to Madison’s Federalist 51 argument that ambition must counteract ambition, and to the veto-player literature on policy stability.