Judicial Independence in Autocratic, Hybrid, and Democratic Regimes

Abstract

Scholarship on strategic interactions between domestic and international courts and governments has primarily focused on how such politics unfold in democratic contexts. Currently, several previous democracies are experiencing backsliding and electoral autocracy is now the world’s most common regime type. While court-curbing and attacks on judicial independence is often at the core of autocraticization efforts, courts continue to be at least nominally independent from executives and backsliding regimes. Preserving judicial checks on executive authority may require a robust defense of judicial independence already at the outset of backsliding episodes, making it crucial to understand how citizens also in democratic regimes respond to the politicization of the judiciary. This panel brings together papers studying the choices judges’ make in response to autocratization, how citizens respond to attempts of executive attempts to politicize the judiciary, and courts' ability to safeguard democracy, individual rights, and their own independence.

Title	Details
The effect of courts fragmentation on electoral disputes	View Paper Details
Litigating and Adjudicating Electoral Disputes in Hybrid Regimes: Evidence from Zambia	View Paper Details
Who should be selected to the highest court and how? Evidence from comparative survey experiments	View Paper Details
RULE OF LAW AS A BOGEYMAN. THE CASE OF POLAND	View Paper Details