Crafting Courts in New Democracies: Ideology and Judicial Council Reforms in Three Mexican States

Abstract

Existing explanations of judicial reform emphasize the positive effects of electoral competition. However, multiple, competing, and even contradictory mechanisms behind this association obfuscate causation, and variation in the timing and content of reforms remains puzzling for these accounts. Leveraging a “most similar” comparative design at the subnational level across three Mexican states, and drawing on archival analysis and 61 interviews with judges and other legal elites, I examine variation in judicial councils – a key institutional transformation – and find that principled-ideological factors shape reform. That is, judicial reform is less a mechanical side-effect of increasing electoral competition and more the product of principled, purposeful action. The findings help resolve the abovementioned puzzles, emphasizing the role of agency and ideas in building democratic institutions.