Nick Cheesman, “How an Authoritarian Regime in Burma Used Special Courts to Defeat Judicial Independence.” Law & Society Review, vol. 45, no. 4 (2011): 801–30. Summary: Why do authoritarian rulers establish special courts? One view is that they do so to insulate the judiciary from politically oriented cases and allow it continued, albeit limited, independence. …
Rachel E Bowen, “Judicial Autonomy in Central America: A Typological Approach.” Political Research Quarterly, vol. 66, no. 4 (2013): 831–42. Summary: Judicial autonomy from societal actors is argued herein to be a critical aspect of the rule of law and to have been overlooked by the dominance within comparative judicial politics of the role of interbranch …
Santiago Basabe-Serrano, “Informal Institutions and Judicial Independence in Paraguay, 1954-2011.” Law & Policy, vol. 37, no. 4 (2015): 350-378. Summary: This article explains how informal institutions have prevented the emergence of autonomous judges in Paraguay between 1954 and 2011. The central argument is that co-optation, clientelism, and judicial corruption considered as informal institutions, rooted during the …
Björn Ahl, “Retaining Judicial Professionalism: The New Guiding Cases Mechanism of the Supreme People’s Court.” The China Quarterly, vol. 217 (2014): 121–39. Summary: In 2011 and 2012, the Supreme People’s Court (SPC) published its first “guiding cases.” Guiding cases serve as decision-making models that must be taken into account by lower courts when deciding similar …
Bjorn Ahl, “Judicialization in authoritarian regimes: The expansion of powers of the Chinese Supreme People’s Court.” International Journal of Constitutional Law, Volume 17, Issue 1 (January 2019): Pages 252–277 Summary: Over the past two decades courts in China have undergone tremendous changes as they developed into more professional and efficient institutions for solving legal disputes. …
Abouharb, M. Rodwan, Laura P. Moyer, and Megan Schmidt, “De Facto Judicial Independence and Physical Integrity Rights.” Journal of Human Rights, vol. 12, no. 4 (2013): 367–96. Summary: Economists, political scientists, and legal scholars have argued that independent judiciaries have an important role to play in promoting economic development and protecting property rights. Abouharb, Moyer, and …
Sergio Verdugo, “How Judges Can Challenge Dictators and Get Away with It: Advancing Democracy while Preserving Judicial Independence.” Columbia Journal of Transnational Law, vol. 59, no. 3 (2021): 554-607 Summary: The literature on constitutional courts in authoritarian and hybrid regimes typically suggests that judges who challenge such regimes in high-stakes cases risk substantial political backlash. Accordingly, …
Alexei Trochev and Rachel Ellett, “Judges and Their Allies: Rethinking Judicial Autonomy through the Prism of Off-Bench Resistance.” Journal of Law and Courts, vol. 2, no. 1 (2014): 67–91. Summary: The social construction of judicial power is a complicated process, especially in hybrid political regimes. Trochev and Ellett argue that off-bench resistance against blatant interference supported …
Peter H Solomon, “Courts and Judges in Authoritarian Regimes.” World Politics, vol. 60, no. 1 (2007): 122–45. Summary: Typically, authoritarian leaders treat law and courts in an instrumental fashion and try to keep judges dependent and responsive to their desires. Various works reveal the sophisticated ways that this is achieved, including the development of judicial bureaucracies …
Steven D Schaff, “Contentious Politics in the Courthouse: Law as a Tool for Resisting Authoritarian States in the Middle East.” Law & Society Review, vol. 55, no. 1 (2021): 139-176 Summary: Under what conditions will individuals mobilize law to resist states that operate above the law? In authoritarian countries, particularly in the Middle East, law is …