Economic Analysis and the Design of Constitutional Courts
-
Tom Ginsburg
Though nominally exercised on behalf of private citizens, constitutional judicial review does perform an insurance function for politicians who expect to lose power in future elections. This paper discusses the various dimensions of institutional design of constitutional courts and argues that the extent and power of judicial review can be expected to increase relative to the degree of political uncertainty at the time of constitutional design. The paper then develops a simple empirical test of this hypothesis using data from Eastern Europe, regressing measures for various aspects of court design on the strength of the largest party in the legislature. The paper shows that the design of constitutional courts reflects the interests of the dominant political parties and that independent and powerful courts are associated with situations of divided or deadlocked politics.
©2011 Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co. KG, Berlin/Boston
Artikel in diesem Heft
- Article
- Constitutional Consequentialism: Bargain Democracy versus Median Democracy
- Virtue and Self-Interest in the Design of Constitutional Institutions
- Economic Analysis and the Design of Constitutional Courts
- Ruling Majorities and Reasoning Pluralities
- The Condorcet Jury Theorem and Judicial Decisionmaking: A Reply to Saul Levmore
- Defining Citizenship
- Economic Culturalism: A comment on Dennis Mueller, Defining Citizenship
- Party Primaries as Collective Action with Constitutional Ramifications: Israel as a Case Study
- The Primaries System and Its Constitutional Effect: Where is the Revolution?
- On Constitutional Processes and the Delegation of Power, with Special Emphasis on Israel and Central and Eastern Europe
Artikel in diesem Heft
- Article
- Constitutional Consequentialism: Bargain Democracy versus Median Democracy
- Virtue and Self-Interest in the Design of Constitutional Institutions
- Economic Analysis and the Design of Constitutional Courts
- Ruling Majorities and Reasoning Pluralities
- The Condorcet Jury Theorem and Judicial Decisionmaking: A Reply to Saul Levmore
- Defining Citizenship
- Economic Culturalism: A comment on Dennis Mueller, Defining Citizenship
- Party Primaries as Collective Action with Constitutional Ramifications: Israel as a Case Study
- The Primaries System and Its Constitutional Effect: Where is the Revolution?
- On Constitutional Processes and the Delegation of Power, with Special Emphasis on Israel and Central and Eastern Europe
