In Democracy in America, Alexis de Tocqueville famously noted that "scarcely any political question arises in the United States that is not resolved, sooner or later, into a judicial question." The importance of courts in settling political questions in areas ranging from health care to immigration shows the continuing astuteness of de Tocqueville’s observation. To understand how courts resolve these important questions, empirical analyses of law, courts and judges, and the politics and policy influence of law and courts have never been more salient or more essential.
Law, Courts and Politics was developed to analyze these critically important questions. This series presents empirically driven manuscripts in the broad field of judicial politics and public law by scholars in law and social science. It uses the most up to date scholarship and seeks an audience of students, academics, upper division undergraduate and graduate courses in law, political science and sociology as well as anyone interested in learning more about law, courts and politics.
By Michael K. Romano, Todd A. Curry
September 18, 2019
Written opinions are the primary means by which judges communicate with external actors. These sentiments include the parties to the case itself, but also more broadly journalists, public officials, lawyers, other judges, and increasingly, the mass public. In Creating the Law, Michael K. Romano and...
By Bradley D. Hays
May 29, 2019
States in American Constitutionalism: Interpretation, Authority, and Politics examines the often overlooked role that states have played in the development and maintenance of American constitutionalism by examining the purpose and effect of state resolutions on national constitutional meaning. From...
By Scott E. Lemieux, David J. Watkins
November 01, 2017
For decades, the question of judicial review’s status in a democratic political system has been adjudicated through the framework of what Alexander Bickel labeled "the counter-majoritarian difficulty." That is, the idea that judicial review is particularly problematic for democracy because it ...
By C. Scott Peters
September 06, 2017
State judicial elections are governed by a unique set of rules that enforce longstanding norms of judicial independence by limiting how judicial candidates campaign. These rules have been a key part of recent debates over judicial elections and have been the subject of several U.S. Supreme Court ...
Edited
By Thomas F. Burke, Jeb Barnes
August 23, 2017
Across the globe, law in all its variety is becoming more central to politics, public policy, and everyday life. For over four decades, Robert A. Kagan has been a leading scholar of the causes and consequences of the march of law that is characteristic of late 20th and early 21st century governance...
By Pablo José Castillo Ortiz
April 13, 2017
Cases such as the Maastricht ruling by the German Federal Constitutional Court or the 'Crotty; decision by the Irish Supreme Court have gone down in the history of European integration as outstanding examples of intervention by judicial actors in important political processes. In this book, Dr. ...
Edited
By Chris W. Bonneau, Melinda Gann Hall
December 12, 2016
Leading authorities present the latest cutting edge research on state judicial elections. Starting with recent transformations in the electoral landscape, including those brought about by U.S. Supreme Court rulings, this volume provides penetrating analyses of partisan, nonpartisan, and retention ...
Edited
By Andrea Castagnola, Saul Lopez Noriega
November 23, 2016
After more than seventy years of uninterrupted authoritarian government headed by the Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI), Mexico formally began the transition to democracy in 2000. Unlike most other new democracies in Latin America, no special Constitutional Court was set up, nor was there ...
By Nicola Ch. Corkin
November 18, 2016
Europeanization of Judicial Review argues that the higher complexity of the political framework in which laws are made today leads to less well-designed laws and loop-holes, allowing politicians to leave decisions to the courts. The higher complexity of the political framework is a result of the ...
By Mary McThomas
August 14, 2015
Theoretically, the right to privacy is an individual’s right to space away from the public gaze to make life choices that are best for her or him, regardless of the beliefs of the majority. Yet the right to privacy in the United States has proven problematic for both political theorists and ...
By Rorie Spill Solberg, Eric N. Waltenburg
February 17, 2015
The Court’s decisions are interpreted and disseminated via the media. During this process, the media paints an image of the Court and its business. Like any artist, the media has license regarding what to cover and the amount of attention devoted to any aspect of the Court and its business. Some ...
Edited
By Brandon L. Bartels, Chris W. Bonneau
October 10, 2014
One of the more enduring topics of concern for empirically-oriented scholars of law and courts—and political scientists more generally—is how research can be more directly relevant to broader audiences outside of academia. A significant part of this issue goes back to a seeming disconnect between ...
