Better Governance

From Theories to Codes
Erscheinungsjahr 2026
ISBN: 978-3-032-33225-7
Verlag: Springer Nature Switzerland AG

Buch, Englisch, 138 Seiten, Format (B × H): 155 mm x 235 mm

Reihe: Professional Practice in Governance and Public Organizations

This book examines how governance structures shape incentives, behavior, and long-term investment, arguing that the quality of governance is the primary determinant of prosperity and liberty. It explains how political power operates, why inclusive democracies tend to outperform autocracies, and how institutional frameworks can leverage technology to automate enforcement. 

Drawing on institutional economics, mechanism design, game theory, and systems engineering, the book reframes constitutional design as an engineering problem rather than an ideological debate. Instead of prescribing specific policy decisions, it proposes a framework for constructing rules and constitutional provisions that reliably produce better collective decisions. 

Moving from theory to practice, the book offers a rigorous blueprint for scholars, policymakers, reformers, and technologists seeking to improve governance. It provides concrete tools for institutional reform, including an AI-based adjudication system and a “smart constitution” deployable on a blockchain to govern political transitions and establish legitimate interim governments. It also proposes a zero-trust constitutional framework that assumes adversarial behavior by public officials. 

Zielgruppe

Research

Autoren/Hrsg.

Armani, Daniel

Fachgebiete

• Wirtschaftswissenschaften Volkswirtschaftslehre Wirtschaftspolitik, politische Ökonomie
• Sozialwissenschaften Politikwissenschaft Politische Systeme Zentralregierung
• Wirtschaftswissenschaften Volkswirtschaftslehre Volkswirtschaftslehre Allgemein Wirtschaftstheorie, Wirtschaftsphilosophie
• Wirtschaftswissenschaften Volkswirtschaftslehre Wohlfahrtsökonomie
• Sozialwissenschaften Politikwissenschaft Politische Systeme Vergleichende Politikwissenschaft

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Chapter 1. Introduction.- Chapter 2. The Invention of Contracts.- Chapter 3. The Evolution of Enforcement.- Chapter 4. The Political Economy of Power.- Chapter 5. Democracy as the Least Bad System.- Chapter 6. Why Democracies Prosper.- Chapter 7. Governance with Blockchain.- Chapter 8. Transitional Governance.- Chapter 9. A Universal Zero-Trust Constitution.- Chapter 10. AI and the Future of Governance.

Über Autor(innen)

Daniel Armani is an applied econometrician, institutional economist, and data scientist whose work examines how governance, AI, and blockchain technologies shape collective action and economic performance. His research focuses on automated governance and decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs), which he designs and evaluates using online experimentation and agent-based simulation. He has led research on collective intelligence and governance mechanisms at Michigan State University, the University of Texas at Austin (as Principal Investigator), and the University of Delaware, and has taught at all three institutions. He holds a Master’s in Socio-economic Systems and a PhD in Management Information Systems.