The article explores how Pakistan’s judiciary expanded its power under Musharraf, with lawyers and judges resisting regime control through public interest litigation.
Politics Within the Legal Profession
Abel (2023), How Autocrats Attack Expertise: Resistance to Trump and Trumpism
This book explores Trump’s attacks on expertise and truth, highlighting the resistance from professionals defending integrity against his autocratic tactics.
Abel (2025), How Autocrats Are Held Accountable: Resistance to Trump and Trumpism
This book documents the legal and political battles against Trump and his supporters’ autocratic actions, analyzing lawsuits, prosecutions, and broader resistance efforts in defense of American democracy.
Mann (2024), Defending Legal Freedoms in Indonesia: The Indonesian Legal Aid Foundation and Cause Lawyering in an Age of Democratic Decline
This book explores how Indonesia’s leading legal aid organization, YLBHI, has used cause lawyering to resist authoritarianism, navigate democratic setbacks, and defend legal freedoms amid growing threats to democracy.
Stuart and Scheingold (2001), Cause Lawyering and the State in a Global Era
This book explores how globalization and democratization are enabling cause lawyers to use transnational networks to challenge the status quo and promote social change through legal advocacy.
Halliday (1987), Beyond Monopoly: Lawyers, State Crises, and Professional Empowerment
Halliday argues that lawyers use their legal expertise to shape state responses to crises, stabilizing democratic institutions and adapting to political, legal, and fiscal challenges.
Reid (1981), Lawyers and Politics in the Arab World
This book traces how lawyers in the Arab world evolved from anti-colonial leaders to marginalized figures under post-independence military regimes, highlighting the shifting intersection of law, politics, and power.
Winn and Yeh (1995), “Advocating Democracy: The Role of Lawyers in Taiwan’s Political Transformation”
Despite some lawyers in Taiwan working for social justice, the idea of actively opposing a repressive state is not yet central to the legal profession, though ongoing democratization and legal reforms may enable a more politically engaged role for lawyers in the future.
Hutchinson (2008), “In the Public Interest’: The Responsibilities and Rights of Government Lawyers”
This article critiques the default assumption that government lawyers share the same ethical duties as private lawyers and proposes a new framework grounded in a democratic understanding of law and justice.
Cameron (2002), “Democracy and the Separation of Powers: Threats, Dilemmas, and Opportunities in Latin America”
A proposal that advocates for a more activist and inclusive OAS by using past reform efforts as a blueprint to create a commission integrating civil society and political actors to strengthen democratic regional governance.