This paper examines the institutional foundations of judicial power. It builds on a 2004 study of the U.S. Supreme Court by McGuire, who found that integration of the U.S. Supreme Court into the federal policymaking system better enabled its justices to satisfy their objectives. We examine whether a similar dynamic exists with respect to the High Court of Australia. Australia provides an appropriate comparison because, like the U.S., it has a federal system, written constitution, and judicial review. We address the following two questions: How has the institutional environment inhabited by the High Court of Australia changed over time? And what have been the political consequences of these changes? To answer them we construct a dynamic index of the institutionalization of the High Court of Australia from 1903 to 2015 that allows us to assess the Court’s integration into the national policymaking system. This index is comprised of three variables (differentiation, durability, and autonomy) and draws on several sources of data, including years of judicial service, judicial salaries, and density of judicial rules. We also create an index of judicial power that is comprised of two measures: the annual number of state and national laws declared unconstitutional by the Court and the annual number of landmark decisions, the latter of which we identify using methods devised by Cook (1993). In analyzing the relationship between our indices of institutionalization and judicial power, we use a variety of statistical analyses and control for socioeconomic complexity, legislative activity, and size of the Court’s docket.
