Courts in Authoritarian Regimes

Abstract

THE EXPANSION OF JUDICIAL STUDIES This project represents something of a high watermark in the study of law and courts in general and judicial review in particular. Not so very long ago nearly every student of the politics of law and courts concentrated on the constitutional decisions of the U.S. Supreme Court. The very preoccupation with constitutional judicial review has led, in recent years, to more study of lands beyond the United States as constitutional courts and constitutional judicial review, or something very like it, spread to other democratic regimes, particularly after World War II. What once appeared to be a piece of American exceptionalism came into play in most European, continental, democratic states; and in the European Union and the European Convention on Human Rights; in more and more English-speaking countries; and in some Asian democratic states. Overseas realities eventually forced scholars to go beyond their American preoccupations. At the same time, the very concerns with the politics of law and courts, or the judicial role in politics, that had so dramatically called our attention to the constitutional law of the U.S. Supreme Court and then to other constitutional law and courts eventually lead us to nonconstitutional courts of law, because it could hardly be denied that all sorts of American and foreign courts made significant public policy decisions in all sorts of cases involving all sorts of law.