This collection of essays illustrates both the problems and possibilities of turning to James Madison for illumination as if he were a contemporary political scientist. Conceived in a conference to celebrate the 250th anniversary of Madison's birth, this volume is written by public choice theorists, the latest group of political scientists who claim to be Madison's heirs. In particular, the authors explore his understanding of the relationship of institutional design to policy outcomes and his insights into the use of interests and incentives to influence the behavior of politicians, groups, and ordinary citizens. They also examine his observations about free-riding, collective action, the delegation of authority from citizens to representatives, and the problems of “agency” responsibility and loss that result from delegation. Yet another goal of these authors is to explore the intellectual sources and experiences that led to Madison's keen insights into some of the basic concepts that have become central to public choice theory.

As is almost always the case in such collections, the quality of contributions varies. Iain McLean's essay on the sources and influence of Madison's political science sets forth the strained claim that his defense of elections from expanded electoral districts was inspired by or even derived from the Marquis de Condorcet's jury theorem. McLean provides no proof that Madison read Condorcet or understood his jury theorem, let alone applied it. Theories about the effects of the size of the electorate on the kind of candidates elected and of the policies enacted abounded in revolutionary America and sprang directly from specific practices. These are far more likely candidates for the sources of Madison's ideas on representation. In contrast, Keith Dougherty's contention that Madison “was at the forefront of collective action theorists in early America”—seconded in a separate essay by Rick Wilson—is convincing because both scholars provide numerous examples of Madison's remarkable, if incipient, reflections on the free-rider problem (p. 57). These reflections arose, Dougherty and Wilson establish, in the Confederation Congress as Madison observed states spurning their obligations and delegates offering similar excuses for noncompliance.

The most challenging and provocative essay is by the volume's editor, Samuel Kernell. Recasting a familiar charge, Kernell argues that Madison's cases for pluralism in the tenth Federalist and for separation of powers in No. 51 are not only redundant—if extent of territory blocks majority factions, then why is separation of powers necessary?—but at their core contradictory. “One simply cannot,” Kernell argues, “design a constitution, that optimizes the performance of both factional competition and checks and balances. While the former prescribes essentially a majoritarian solution to the potential dilemma of majority tyranny, separation of powers—as implemented with the Constitution's strong checks and balances described in Number 51—succeeds only to the extent it frustrates this same majority control” (p. 94). Sure enough, Madison did not attempt what cannot be done. The Federalist No. 51, Kernell concludes, is a strategic argument to counter the antifederalists' contention that the system of separation of powers in the Constitution was inadequate to prevent governmental tyranny. The “true principles” of Madison's political science, according to Kernell, are presented in his defense of nationalism and pluralism and are found in the The Federalist No. 10.

Other essays in this volume also provide meaty interpretations that should prompt significant challenges and revisions. John Ferejohn argues sensibly that Madison's understanding of separation of powers was flexible and experimental and that it changed as his initial fears of legislative encroachments gave way to the threat of executive aggrandizement in the 1790s. Following Jack Rakove's lead, Daniel Wirl points out that Madison's goal to have the Senate serve as a select deliberative body that could control the House and also to be based on proportional representation resulted in tension. The Senate's role as a deliberative body did not depend upon a basis of proportional representation. Furthermore, any workable scheme of proportional representation required a relatively large number of senators. In championing these incompatible goals, Wirl contends, Madison strengthened the hand of small-state delegates who sought equal representation and thus helped bring about the very compromise that he vehemently opposed. Finally, contributions by David Brian Robertson and Jenna Bednar deal, respectively, with Madison's efforts to control state autonomy and the national government, while D. Roderick Kiewier and Norman Schofield interpret Madison's role as a political statesman during the 1790s.

Together, these essays establish that Madison articulated and thought seriously about several concepts that would later become central to public choice theory. Even more, they provide subtle explications and criticisms of Madison's theoretical rationale for the original constitutional design. But where does this leave Madison the political scientist? Are we called by these authors merely to appreciate his prescience, or did he make contributions to rational choice theory or political science in general that have not yet been outstripped by contemporary scholars?

Ironically, the essay in this volume that pursues the strongest case for Madison's contemporary relevance is also the only one that emphasizes the peculiarly eighteenth-century, republican roots of his political thought and his sharp differences with the rational choice approach. Madison, Randall Strahan reminds us, did not simply hope to design institutions to channel self-interest toward the public good. He also “devoted serious attention to the question of how constitutional forms could be designed to attract and develop political leaders who would be inclined to use public office to advance the public good” (p. 65). Unlike public choice theorists, Madison believed that both representatives and the electorate were capable of acting upon the basis of higher, public-regarding political motives. Also unlike public choice theorists, he did not believe that giving representatives a degree of slack or independence would necessarily lead them to pursue opportunistic and corrupt behavior.

Strahan's observations suggest that there was still considerable romance in Madison's republicanism and that he did not accept what is perhaps the foundational assumption of public choice theory, namely, that individuals act on the same basis in the political arena as in the marketplace. They also suggest that a systematic comparison of Madison's political science to public choice theory might raise additional questions about whether the similarities brought out in this book are foundational or surface, and whether public choice theorists are really the heirs of the man that they claim as the most modern of the ancients.