Mark Fathi Massoud, “The Rule of Law in Fragile States: Dictatorship, Collapse, and the Politics of Religion in Post-Colonial Somalia.” Journal of Law and Society, vol. 47, no. 1 (2020): 111-125. Summary: The fate of the rule of law in fragile states rests in religious politics. Three defining periods of Somali politics illustrate this argument. …
Charles Manga Fombad, “Some Perspectives on the Prospects for Judicial Independence in Post-1990 African Constitutions.” The Denning Law Journal, vol. 16, no.1 (2012): 17-43 Summary: According to popular wisdom, judicial independence and the rule of law are essential features of modern democracy. Drawing on the growing comparative literature on courts, Helmke and Rosenbluth unpack this …
Gretchen Helmke and Frances Rosenbluth, “Regimes and the Rule of Law: Judicial Independence in Comparative Perspective.” Annual Review of Political Science, vol. 12, no. 1 (2009): 345-366. Summary: According to popular wisdom, judicial independence and the rule of law are essential features of modern democracy. Drawing on the growing comparative literature on courts, Helmke and …
David Enweremadu, “The Judiciary and the Survival of Democracy in Nigeria: Analysis of the 2003 and 2007 Elections.” Journal of African Elections, vol. 10, no. 1 (2011): 114-142. Summary: For many Nigerians, and indeed in the eyes of most foreign observers of Nigerian affairs, the restoration of democratic rule in Africa’s largest country in May …
Fiona Shen-Bayh, “Strategies of Repression: Judicial and Extrajudicial Methods of Autocratic Survival.” World Politics, vol. 70, no. 3 (2018): 321–57. Summary: Strategies of repression vary widely between extrajudicial and judicial extremes, from unrestrained acts of violence to highly routinized legal procedures. While the former have received a great deal of scholarly attention, judicial methods remain relatively …
David M. Driesen, The Specter of Dictatorship: Judicial Enabling of Presidential Power. Redwood City: Stanford University Press, 2021. Summary: In The Specter of Dictatorship, David Driesen analyzes the chief executive’s role in the democratic decline of Hungary, Poland, and Turkey and argues that an insufficiently constrained presidency is one of the most important systemic threats to …
Hugh Corder and Cora Hoexter, “‘Lawfare’ in South Africa and Its Effects on the Judiciary.” African Journal of Legal Studies, vol. 10, no. 2-3 (2017): 105-126 Summary: This article identifies three senses of the term ‘lawfare’ in the South African context. In the first and most standard sense of the term, law was abused by the …
Mariana Llanos, Cordula Tibi Weber, Charlotte Heyl, and Alexander Stroh, “Informal Interference in the Judiciary in New Democracies: A Comparison of Six African and Latin American Cases.” Democratization, vol. 23, no. 7 (2016): 1236–53. Summary: This article focuses on the efforts of power holders – at the executive or the legislative level – to influence …
Peter Vondoepp, “The Problem of Judicial Control in Africa’s Neopatrimonial Democracies: Malawi and Zambia.” Political Science Quarterly, vol 120, no. 2 (2005): 275–301. Summary: Judges’ actions underscore a key feature of political life in Malawi and Zambia since the onset of their respective periods of democratic rule. In both countries, judiciaries have displayed a striking tendency …
Charles Manga Fombad. “The Struggle to Defend the Independence of the Judiciary in Africa”. In Challenged Justice: In Pursuit of Judicial Independence. Edited by Shimon Shetreet, Hiram Chodosh, and Helland Eric, pp. 223-248. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill | Nijhoff, 2021 Summary: By design or default, Africa’s post-independence constitutions perpetuated a system of harsh authoritarian governance in …