Azul A. Aguiar Aguilar, Rodrigo Castro Cornejo, Alejandro Monsiváis-Carrillo, “Is Mexico at the Gates of Authoritarianism?” Journal of Democracy, Vol. 36, no.1 (2025): 50-64. Summary: Mexico might be on the verge of becoming one of the latest additions to the list of competitive authoritarian regimes. By the end of the term of President Andrés Manuel …
Lauren A. McCarthy, “Oversight of the Legal System in an Authoritarian Regime: Police and Court Monitoring in Russia.” Journal of Law and Courts, vol. 13, no. 1 (2025): 195-219. Summary: How can citizens in authoritarian regimes exercise oversight of the legal system? McCarthy examines police and court monitoring, bottom-up oversight activities popular in pre-war Russia …
Michael A. Dichio, “Stewards, defenders, progenitors, and collaborators: Courts in the age of democratic decline.” Law and Policy, vol. 47, no. 1 (2025): e12251. Summary: In this introductory essay to the special issue of Law & Policy, “Global Perspectives on Judicial Politics and Democratic Backsliding,” Dichio critically examines the paradoxical role of courts during episodes …
Berk Esen, “Judicial transformation in a competitive authoritarian regime: Evidence from the Turkish case.” Law and Policy, vol. 47, no.1 (2025): e12250. Summary: What accounts for the variation in the judiciary’s ability to serve as a democratic guardrail under populist rule? This article contends that populist governments use judicial activism against their political agenda to …
Eduardo A. Chia, “Authoritarian Constitutionalism, Judicial Capture or the Ambivalence of Modern Law?” Oñati Socio-Legal Series, vol. 15, no. 2 (2025): 427–458. Summary: The work builds primarily on literature analysis to critically engage with two interrelated issues: (i) the notion of “authoritarian constitutionalism” and (ii) the ambivalences observed in judicature’s conceptual articulation and institutional structuration. …
Benjamin Garcia-Holgado, “Court-Packing and Democratic Decay: A necessary relationship?” Global Constitutionalism, vol. 12, no. 2 (July 2023): 350-377 Summary: A growing body of literature on the role of courts in democratic backsliding claims that court-packing weakens liberal democracy. However, this is not necessarily the case. The goals of the actors who produce court-packing help to …
Benjamin Garcia-Holgado, “Radicalization and the Origins of Populist Narratives about the Courts: The Argentinian Case, 2007–2015.” Journal of Illiberalism Studies, vol. 3, no. 2 (Summer 2023), 43-64. Summary: In Latin America, presidents from different ideological backgrounds have systematically attacked the judiciary in order to implement their preferred public policies. In many cases, the leaders who …
Sandra Botero, Benjamin Garcia-Holgado, “Judges under stress: The Argentine Supreme Court (2003-2023) and the Colombian Constitutional Court (2002-2023) amid polarization.” International Journal of Constitutional Law, Vol. 22, no.5 (December 2024): 1424-1448 Summary: In this article, the authors study how the Supreme Court of Argentina (2003-2023) and the Constitutional Court of Colombia (2002-2023) responded to periods …
Benjamin Garcia-Holgado and Raul Sanchez Urribarri, “The Dark Side of Legalism: Abuse of the Law and Democratic Erosion in Argentina, Ecuador, and Venezuela.” American Behavioral Scientist, vol. 68, no. 12 (August 2024): 60-66. Summary: Why do some elected leaders use legalistic strategies to undermine democracy from within? And under what conditions do they succeed in …
Benjamin Garcia-Holgado, “Overruling the Executive: Judicial Strategies to Resist Democratic Erosion.” Journal of Laws and Courts, vol. 13, no.1 (April 2025): 274-303. Summary: How can autonomous apex courts with specific attitudes and role conceptions counter executive aggrandizement? This article theorizes two causal mechanisms through which justices can resist democratic erosion. The first mechanism involves apex courts …