Interests and Theories in Constitutional Choice

Abstract

The paper contrasts two interpretations of the role of agreement in politics, a social contract notion and a dialogue notion. It is argued that the two notions can be viewed as complementing each other if one explicitly separates two components in human choice that in rational choice theory are often inseparably blended in the concept of preferences - an interest-component and a theory component. It is suggested that the contractarian agreement notion primarily focusses on the interest-component; the dialogue notion on the theory-component in constitutional choice.