Political Science Faculty Publications
Document Type
Article
Abstract
What effect does political competition have in generating de facto judicial independence? We argue that competition in a legislature can drive increases in de facto judicial independence. Our game-theoretic model reveals that increased competition for seats impedes legislators’ ability to enact their platforms, regardless of government turnover probability, and increased legislative fractionalization also makes court intervention more likely. Utilizing a sample of democratic states, empirical evidence suggests when a country’s legislature is increasingly fractionalized among parties or has increasing seat turnover, we observe increases in de facto independence. This research provides new perspectives on the link between independence and competition.
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Repository Citation
Boston, Joshua; Carlson, David; Duck-Mayr, J. Brandon; and Sasso, Greg, "Political Competition and Judicial Independence: How Courts Fill the Void When Legislatures Are Ineffective" (2023). Political Science Faculty Publications. 65.
https://scholarworks.bgsu.edu/poli_sci_pub/65
Publication Date
2023
Publication Title
Journal of Law and Courts
Publisher
Cambridge University Press
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1017/jlc.2023.16
Start Page No.
1
End Page No.
20