Courts and informal networks: Towards a relational perspective on judicial politics outside Western democracies

Abstract

This special issue proposes a relational approach to the study of judicial politics outside of Western democracies. The articles illuminate how common political interests, ideas, social identity, family and professional ties and even patron-client obligations between judges and other actors shape a variety of phenomena of interest to the study of judicial institutions, in terms of how the judiciary is organised and administered, how judges are appointed and make decisions, and the prospects for judicial reform. Collectively, the articles explore the informal dimension of judicial politics in a systematic fashion, through rich empirical case studies in very different contexts. Thus, they help structure a new comparative agenda for research on informal judicial politics outside of the West.

Sustaining and jeopardising a credible arbiter: Judicial networks in Benin’s consolidating democracy

“…What makes courts credible arbiters of political disputes and brings them into the position to facilitate or even foster the consolidation of unlikely democracies? Similar to other African scholars in the field of judicial politics who directly hold appointment practices responsible for the legitimation and functional performance of African courts (Adouki, 2013;Fombad, 2014), I argue that the representation of networks on the bench (see Dressel et al, 2018) critically affect the court's reputation and credibility. Due to the court's reputational decline in the recent past, the Constitutional Court of Benin (CCB) presents a pertinent case for empirically examining the link between (objective) network structures and (subjective) perceived credibility.…”

“…Purely political relations can serve the same end. Given that there is no agreement in the literature that socio-cultural ties were a result of political relations or vice versa, any study of politically relevant networks in these specific societies should take into account a broader range of cultural, economic and social relations rather than solely the political (see Dressel et al, 2018). In the following, I selectively pick the communalist argument to illustrate the implications of a broader conception of what a court bench delivers for its credibility in many debates related to Africa.…”

Megapolitical Cases before the Constitutional Court of Indonesia since 2004: An Empirical Study

“…57 These factors, while often hard to grasp empirically, deserve more scholarly attention, 58 and certainly need to become part of a broader empirical research agenda on courts throughout the Global South. 59 The Constitutional Court of the Republic of Indonesia surely deserves continuing attention. How it exercises its role and guards its powers in years to come will be crucial to how the rule of law and judicial practice evolve not only in Indonesia but throughout a region confronted by consistent challenges to rule-based practice.…”

Informal networks and judicial decisions: Insights from the Supreme Court of the Philippines, 1986–2015

“…Some scholars have questioned the singular focus on judicial preferences related to legal policy, suggesting that judges may also pursue personal goals, such as their standing with the public and legal audiences (Baum, 2006); career considerations and aspects of workload and leisure time (Posner, 2008); or maintaining collegiality on the bench (Friedman, 2006). Others, particularly those studying courts in the Global South, have highlighted how judges are socially embedded in personal relations and wider social networks (systems of interactions and personal relationships adapted to social circumstances 17 ), and use these relations to explain variations in outcomes as diverse as judicial autonomy, ideational diffusion, patronage appointments, and even the actual decisions of judges (see in this special edition introduction by Dressel et al;Ellett, 2013;Helmke and Ríos-Figueroa, 2010).…”

“…As highlighted in the introduction to this special edition (see, Dressel et al, 2018) many theoretical models of judicial behaviour developed in the West (e.g., legal, attitudinal, and strategic–rational) do not transfer easily to countries in the Global South or the post-communist world where institutions are far from sturdy, ideological fault lines are fluid, and informal practices generate uncertainty (Kapiszewski, 2012). In many non-Western societies, it has become clear that the informal and the formal are closely interwoven in institutional activities, eliciting growing recognition that the study of formal institutional arrangements needs to be complemented by similar attention to informal arrangements (Helmke and Levitsky, 2004).…”