Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-mkpzs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-24T01:17:17.014Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Does Public Support for Judicial Power Depend on Who is in Political Power? Testing a Theory of Partisan Alignment in Africa

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 November 2019

BRANDON L. BARTELS Open the ORCID record for BRANDON L. BARTELS [Opens in a new window]  and
ERIC KRAMON Open the ORCID record for ERIC KRAMON [Opens in a new window]
BRANDON L. BARTELS*
Affiliation:
George Washington University
ERIC KRAMON*
Affiliation:
George Washington University
*
*Brandon L. Bartels, Associate Professor of Political Science, George Washington University, [email protected].
†Eric Kramon, Assistant Professor of Political Science and International Affairs, George Washington University, [email protected].
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Judicial power is central to democratic consolidation and the rule of law. Public support is critical for establishing and protecting it. Conventional wisdom holds that this support is rooted in apolitical factors and not dependent on who is in political power. By contrast, we argue that support may be driven by instrumental partisan motivations and therefore linked to partisan alignment with the executive. We test the argument with survey evidence from 34 African countries. To provide causal evidence, we conduct difference-in-differences analyses leveraging Ghana’s three presidential transitions since 2000. Across Africa, support for judicial power is high, while trust in courts is lower. However, presidential co-partisans are less supportive of horizontal judicial power over the president and more supportive of vertical power over the people. The article demonstrates the importance of partisan alignment with the executive in shaping support for judicial power, with implications for judicial behavior and legitimacy.

Type
Research Article
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 114 , Issue 1 , February 2020 , pp. 144 - 163
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 2019 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

We thank Celeste Arrington, Jeremy Horowitz, Kennedy Opalo, George Ofosu, David Szakonyi, and participants at the GWU Comparative Politics Workshop and the Cornell Institute for African Development conference on Democratic Backsliding in Africa. We are also grateful to the APSR editors and three anonymous reviewers for their very helpful feedback. Replication files are available at the American Political Science Review Dataverse: https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/HDGUDZ.

References

REFERENCES

Afrobarometer Data. 1999–2016. “Merged Data, Rounds 1–6.” Available at http://www.afrobarometer.org.Google Scholar
Afrobarometer Data. 2018. “Ghana, Round 7.” Available at http://www.afrobarometer.org.Google Scholar
Angrist, Joshua D., and Pischke, Jorn-Steffen. 2008. Mostly Harmless Econometrics: An Empiricist’s Companion. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Baird, Vanessa A. 2001. “Building Institutional Legitimacy: The Role of Procedural Justice.” Political Research Quarterly 54 (2): 333–54.Google Scholar
Barkan, Joel D. 2009. Legislative Power in Emerging African Democracies. Boulder, Colo: Lynne Rienner Publishers.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bartels, Brandon L., and Johnston, Christopher D.. 2013. “On the Ideological Foundations of Supreme Court Legitimacy in the American Public.” American Journal of Political Science 57 (1): 184–99.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bartels, Brandon L., and Johnston, Christopher D.. 2020. Curbing the Court: Why the Public Constrains Judicial Independence. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press. (Forthcoming).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Berliner, Daniel. 2019. “Partisan Context and Procedural Values: Attitudes towards Presidential Secrecy before and after the 2016 United States Election.” Working Paper.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Besley, Timothy, and Case, Anne. 2000. “Unnatural Experiments? Estimating the Incidence of Endogenous Policies.” Economic Journal 110 (467): F672–94.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bratton, Michael, Mattes, Robert B., and Gyimah-Boadi, Emmanuel. 2005. Public Opinion, Democracy, and Market Reform in Africa. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Cameron, Charles M. 2002. “Judicial Independence: How Can You Tell it When You See it?” In Judicial Independence at the Crossroads: An Interdisciplinary Approach, ed. Burbank, Stephen B. and Friedman, Barry. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 134–47.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Carrubba, Clifford James. 2009. “A Model of the Endogenous Development of Judicial Institutions in Federal and International Systems.” The Journal of Politics 71 (1): 55–69.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Christenson, Dino P., and Glick, David M.. 2015. “Chief Justice Roberts’s Health Care Decision Disrobed: The Microfoundations of the Supreme Court’s Legitimacy.” American Journal of Political Science 59 (2): 403–18.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Clark, Tom S. 2011. The Limits of Judicial Independence. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Clark, Tom S., and Kastellec, Jonathan P.. 2015. “Source Cues and Public Support for the Supreme Court.” American Politics Research 43 (3): 504–35.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Coppedge, Michael, Gerring, John, Lindberg, Staffan I., Skaaning, Svend-Erik, Teorell, Jan, Altman, David, Bernhard, Michael, Fish, M. Steven, Glynn, Adam, Hicken, Allen, Henrik Knutsen, Carl, Krusell, Joshua, Lührmann, Anna, Marquardt, Kyle L., McMann, Kelly, Mechkova, Valeriya, Olin, Moa, Paxton, Pamela, Pemstein, Daniel, Pernes, Josefine, Petrarca, Constanza Sanhueza, Römer, Johannes von, Saxer, Laura, Seim, Brigitte, Sigman, Rachel, Staton, Jeffrey, Stepanova, Natalia and Wilson, Steven. 2017. “V-Dem Country-Year Dataset v7.” Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) Project.Google Scholar
Easton, David. 1965. A Systems Analysis of Political Life. New York, NY: John Wiley.Google Scholar
Ellett, Rachel L. 2013. Pathways to Judicial Power in Transitional States: Perspectives from African Courts. New York: Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Epperly, Brad. 2013. “The Provision of Insurance? Judicial Independence and the Post-tenure Fate of Leaders.” Journal of Law and Courts 1 (2): 247–78.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Franck, Raphaël, and Rainer, Ilia. 2012. “Does the Leader’s Ethnicity Matter? Ethnic Favoritism, Education, and Health in Sub-Saharan Africa.” American Political Science Review 106 (2): 294–325.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fridy, Kevin S. 2012. “Where Are Ghana’s Swing Voters? A Look at the Voters Responsible for Alternating Power in One of Africa’s Most Successful Democracies.” Africa Review 4 (2): 107–21.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Friedman, Barry. 2009. The Will of the People: How Public Opinion Has Influenced the Supreme Court and Shaped the Meaning of the Constitution. New York, NY: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.Google Scholar
Friedman, Barry, and Delaney, Erin F.. 2011. “Becoming Supreme: The Federal Foundation of Judicial Supremacy.” Columbia Law Review 111 (6): 1137–93.Google Scholar
Gibler, Douglas M., and Randazzo, Kirk A.. 2011. “Testing the Effects of Independent Judiciaries on the Likelihood of Democratic Backsliding.” American Journal of Political Science 55 (3): 696–709.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gibson, James L. 2007. “The Legitimacy of the U.S. Supreme Court in a Polarized Polity.” Journal of Empirical Legal Studies 4 (3): 507–38.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gibson, James L. 2011. “A Note of Caution about the Meaning of ‘The Supreme Court Can Usually Be Trusted…’.” Law & Courts: Newsletter of the Law & Courts Section of the American Political Science Association 21 (3): 10–16.Google Scholar
Gibson, James L. 2015. “Legitimacy Is for Losers: The Interconnections of Institutional Legitimacy, Performance Evaluations, and the Symbols of Judicial Authority.” In Motivating Cooperation and Compliance with Authority: The Role of Institutional Trust, ed. Bornstein, Brian H. and Tomkins, Alan J.. New York: Springer, 81–116.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gibson, James L., and Caldeira, Gregory A.. 2003. “Defenders of Democracy? Legitimacy, Popular Acceptance, and the South African Constitutional Court.” The Journal of Politics 65 (1): 1–30.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gibson, James L., and Caldeira, Gregory A.. 2009. Citizens, Courts, and Confirmations: Positivity Theory and the Judgments of the American People. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gibson, James L., Caldeira, Gregory A., and Spence, Lester Kenyatta. 2002. “The Role of Theory in Experimental Design: Experiments without Randomization.” Political Analysis 10 (4): 362–75.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gibson, James L., Caldeira, Gregory A., and Spence, Lester Kenyatta. 2003a. “Measuring Attitudes toward the United States Supreme Court.” American Journal of Political Science 47 (2): 354–67.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gibson, James L., Caldeira, Gregory A., and Spence, Lester Kenyatta. 2003b. “The Supreme Court and the US Presidential Election of 2000: Wounds, Self-Inflicted or Otherwise?” British Journal of Political Science 33 (4): 535–56.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gibson, James L., Caldeira, Gregory A., and Baird, Vanessa A.. 1998. “On the Legitimacy of National High Courts.” American Political Science Review 92 (2): 343–58.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gibson, James L., and Nelson, Michael J.. 2014. “The Legitimacy of the US Supreme Court: Conventional Wisdoms and Recent Challenges Thereto.” Annual Review of Law and Social Science 10 (1): 201–19.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gibson, James L., and Nelson, Michael J.. 2015. “Is the U.S. Supreme Court’s Legitimacy Grounded in Performance Satisfaction and Ideology?” American Journal of Political Science 59 (1): 162–74.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gibson, James L., Lodge, Milton, and Woodson, Benjamin. 2014. “Losing, but Accepting: Legitimacy, Positivity Theory, and the Symbols of Judicial Authority.” Law & Society Review 48 (4): 837–66.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ginsburg, Tom. 2003. Judicial Review in New Democracies: Constitutional Courts in Asian Cases. New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gloppen, Siri. 2003. “The Accountability Function of the Courts in Tanzania and Zambia.” Democratization 10 (4): 112–36.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gyimah-Boadi, Emmanuel, and Debrah, Emmanuel. 2008. “Political Parties and Party Politics.” In Ghana: Governance in the Forth Republic, ed. Agyeman-Duah, Baffour. Accra, Ghana: CDD-Ghana Digibooks Publishing, 126–54.Google Scholar
Hall, Matthew E. K. 2010. The Nature of Supreme Court Power. New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Helmke, Gretchen. 2012. Courts Under Constraints: Judges, Generals, and Presidents in Argentina. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Hirschl, Ran. 2004. Towards Juristocracy: The Origins and Consequences of the New Constitutionalism. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Ichino, Nahomi, and Nathan, Noah. 2013. “Local Ethnic Geography and Instrumental Ethnic Voting: Voter Behavior Across Rural Ghana.” American Political Science Review 107 (2): 344–61.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kapiszewski, Diana, and Taylor, Matthew M.. 2013. “Compliance: Conceptualizing, Measuring, and Explaining Adherence to Judicial Rulings.” Law & Social Inquiry 38 (4): 803–35.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kerr, Nicholas, and Wahman, Michael. Forthcoming “Electoral Rulings and Public Trust in African Courts and Elections.” Comparative Politics.Google Scholar
Levi, Margaret, Sacks, Audrey, and Tyler, Tom. 2009. “Conceptualizing Legitimacy, Measuring Legitimating Beliefs.” American Behavioral Scientist 53 (3): 354–75.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Long, James D., Kanyinga, Karuti, Ferree, Karen E., and Gibson, Clark. 2013. “Kenya’s 2013 Elections: Choosing Peace over Democracy.” Journal of Democracy 24 (3): 140–55.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Moehler, Devra C. 2009. “Critical Citizens and Submissive Subjects: Election Losers and Winners in Africa.” British Journal of Political Science 39 (2): 345–66.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nathan, Noah. 2019. “Does Participation Reinforce Patronage? Policy Preferences, Turnout, and Class in Urban Ghana.” British Journal of Political Science 49 (1): 229–55.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nelson, Michael J., and Uribe-McGuire, Alicia. 2017. “Opportunity and Overrides: The Effect of Institutional Public Support on Congressional Overrides of Supreme Court Decisions.” Political Research Quarterly 70 (3): 632–43.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nicholson, Stephen P., and Hansford, Thomas G.. 2014. “Partisans in Robes: Party Cues and Public Acceptance of Supreme Court Decisions.” American Journal of Political Science 58 (3): 620–36.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Odartey-Wellington, Felix, Anas, Anas Aremeyaw, and Boamah, Percy. 2017. “‘Ghana in the Eyes of God’: Media Ecology and the Anas Journalistic Investigation of Ghana’s Judiciary.” Journal of Applied Journalism & Media Studies 6 (2): 293–313.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Prempeh, H. Kwasi. 1997. Toward Judicial Independence and Accountability in an Emerging Democracy: The Courts and the Consolidation of Democracy in Ghana. Accra, Ghana: Institute of Economic Affairs.Google Scholar
Prempeh, H. Kwasi. 2006a. “African Judges, in Their Own Cause: Reconstituting Independent Courts in Contemporary Africa.” International Journal of Constitutional Law 4 (3): 592–605.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Prempeh, H. Kwasi. 2006b. “Marbury in Africa: Judicial Review and the Challenge of Constitutionalism in Contemporary Africa.” Tulane Law Review 80 (4): 1239–324.Google Scholar
Prempeh, H. Kwasi. 2008. “Presidents Untamed: Progress and Retreat in Africa.” Journal of Democracy 19 (2): 109–23.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ramseyer, J. Mark 1994. “The Puzzling (In)Dependence of Courts: A Comparative Approach.” Journal of Legal Studies 23 (2): 721–47.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rosenberg, Gerald N. 1992. “Judicial Independence and the Reality of Political Power.” Review of Politics 54 (3): 369–98.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Staton, Jeffrey K. 2010. Judicial Power and Strategic Communication in Mexico. New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stephenson, Matthew C. 2004. “Court of Public Opinion: Government Accountability and Judicial Independence.” Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization 20 (2): 379–99.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tyler, Tom R. 2006a. “Psychological Perspectives on Legitimacy and Legitimation.” Annual Review of Psychology 57 (1): 375–400.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Tyler, Tom R. 2006b. Why People Obey the Law. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tyler, Tom R., and Rasinski, Kenneth. 1991. “Procedural Justice, Institutional Legitimacy, and the Acceptance of Unpopular U.S. Supreme Court Decisions: A Reply to Gibson.” Law & Society Review 25 (3): 621–30.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
van de Walle, Nicolas. 2003. “Presidentialism and Clientelism in Africa’s Emerging Party Systems.” The Journal of Modern African Studies 41 (2): 297–321.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vanberg, Georg. 2005. The Politics of Constitutional Review in Germany. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Vanberg, Georg. 2015. “Constitutional Courts in Comparative Perspective: A Theoretical Assessment.” Annual Review of Political Science 18 (1): 167–85.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
VonDoepp, Peter. 2009. Judicial Politics in New Democracies: Cases from Southern Africa. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
VonDoepp, Peter, and Ellett, Rachel. 2011. “Reworking Strategic Models of Executive-Judicial Relations: Insights from New African Democracies.” Comparative Politics 43 (2): 147–65.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Whitfield, Lindsay. 2009. “‘Change for a Better Ghana’: Party Competition, Institutionalization and Alternation in Ghana’s 2008 Elections.” African Affairs 108 (433): 621–41.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Widner, Jennifer. 2001. Building the Rule of Law: Francis Nyalali and the Road to Judicial Independence in Africa. New York: W. W. Norton.Google Scholar
Widner, Jennifer, and Scher, Daniel. 2008. “Building Judicial Independence in Semi-Democracies: Uganda and Zimbabwe.” In Rule by Law: The Politics of Courts in Authoritarian Regimes, eds. Ginsburg, Tom and Moustafa, Tamir. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Zilis, Michael A. 2018. “Minority Groups and Judicial Legitimacy: Group Affect and the Incentives for Judicial Responsiveness.” Political Research Quarterly 71 (2): 270–83.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Supplementary material: Link

Bartels and Kramon Dataset

Dataset

https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/HDGUDZ
Link
Supplementary material: PDF

Bartels and Kramon supplementary material

Bartels and Kramon supplementary material

Download Bartels and Kramon supplementary material(PDF)
PDF 286.7 KB
Submit a response

Comments

No Comments have been published for this article.