Benjamin L Liebman, “China’s Courts: Restricted Reform.” The China Quarterly, no. 191 (2007): 620–38. Summary: Recent developments in China’s courts reflect a paradox largely avoided in literature on the subject: Can China’s courts play an effective role in a non-democratic governmental system? Changes to courts’ formal authority have been limited, courts still struggle to address basic …
Liebman, Benjamin L. “A Populist Threat to China’s Courts?,” in Chinese Justice: Civil Dispute Resolution in Contemporary China. Edited by Margaret Y. K. Woo & Mary E. Gallagher, pp. 269-313. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press (2011). Summary: Is the Chinese party-state too responsive to public opinion? In the case of the courts, this may be the …
Alexandra Huneeus, Javier Couso, and Rachel Sieder. “Cultures of Legality: Judicialization and Political Activism in Contemporary Latin America,” In Cultures of Legality: Judicialization and Political Activism in Latin America. Edited by Javier Couso, Alexandra Huneeus, and Rachel Sieder, pp. 3–22. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010. Summary: Legal practices and ideas about law are undergoing dramatic change …
Hualing Fu, “Building Judicial Integrity in China.” Hastings Int’l & Comp. L. Rev, vol. 39, no. 1 (2016): 167-181. Summary: Since the late 1970s, the Chinese judiciary has undergone a continuous reform process of professionalization and institutionalization. Despite the political constraints, there are sufficient opportunities and incentives to continue China’s judicial reform so as to enhance …
Lisa Hilbink, Judges beyond Politics in Democracy and Dictatorship: Lessons from Chile. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007. Summary: Why did formerly independent Chilean judges, trained under and appointed by democratic governments, facilitate and condone the illiberal, antidemocratic, and anti-legal policies of the Pinochet regime? Challenging the assumption that adjudication in non-democratic settings is fundamentally different and …
Hans Petter Graver, Judges Against Justice: On Judges When the Rule of Law is Under Attack. New York City: Springer, 2014. Summary: This book explores concrete situations in which judges are faced with a legislature and an executive that consciously and systematically discard the ideals of the rule of law. It revolves around three basic questions: …
Tom Ginsburg. “Administrative Law and the Judicial Control of Agents in Authoritarian Regimes,” in The Politics of Courts in Authoritarian Regimes. Edited by Tom Ginsburg and Tamir Moustafa, pp. 58-72. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008. Summary: One reason that dictators empower courts is to monitor and discipline lower-level administrative agents. This chapter applies a version of …
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 …