Courts under Constraints: Judges, Generals, and Presidents in Argentina (Cambridge Studies in Comparative Politics) by Gretchen Helmke

Cambridge Studies in Comparative Politics

by Gretchen Helmke

This study offers a new theoretical framework for understanding how institutional instability affects judicial behavior under dictatorship and democracy. In stark contrast to conventional wisdom, the central findings of the book contradict the longstanding assumption that only independent judges rule against the government of the day. Set in the context of Argentina, the study uses the tools of positive political theory to explore the conditions under which courts rule against the government. In addition to shedding new light on the dynamics of court-executive relations in Argentina, the study provides general lessons about institutions, instability, and the rule of law. In the process, the study builds a new set of connections among diverse bodies of scholarship, including US judicial politics, comparative institutional analysis, positive political theory, and Latin American politics.

Genres: Law, Politics

Paperback

First published December 27, 2004

Reviews

[Naomi · Rating 4 out of 5]

Helmke provides an original theory, "strategic defection" to explain the choices of judges in Argentina during and post-dictatorship to rule against the sitting government. She supports her theory with a thorough statistical analysis of case decisions as well as some qualitative discussion of specific judges and specific decisions to explain some of the weaknesses. While I was convinced by its applicability to the Argentine case based on a number of specific features of the Argentine judicial system, such as the prevalence of court packing, I'm less convinced by the application to other judicial systems.