Kapiszewski, Diana. Tactical Balancing: High Court Decision Making on Politically Crucial Cases (2011). Law & Society Review, 45(2), 471–506. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-5893.2011.00437.x
High court decision making in politically sensitive cases cannot be fully understood through ideological or strategic models alone. Kapiszewski advances the thesis of tactical balancing, arguing that justices weigh a specific set of considerations—including their own ideological commitments, the institutional interests of the judiciary, the political consequences of their rulings, public opinion, the preferences of elected officials, and legal constraints—when deciding major cases. This balancing process varies across issues, producing patterns in which courts alternately constrain or support government action. The article shows that such variation reflects how courts prioritize among their multiple institutional roles, with important implications for the rule of law and regime stability in developing democracies. Using the Brazilian high court as a detailed case study, Kapiszewski demonstrates how these tactical choices shaped judicial responses to major economic policy disputes between 1985 and 2004, highlighting the court’s careful calibration between legal principles and political realities.