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Judges Discover Politics

Sources of Judges’ Off-Bench Mobilization in Turkey

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 October 2022

Onur Bakiner
Onur Bakiner*
Affiliation:
Seattle University
*
Contact the author at [email protected].
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Abstract

When do judges initiate public action outside the courtroom? What kinds of political activities do they engage in? What are the consequences of their interactions with social and political actors? This article investigates judges’ efforts to influence law and policy as opinion leaders, protesters, and network builders. In light of recent devevelopments in Turkey, I argue that intrajudicial conflict, that is, the increasing salience of hitherto dormant tensions inside the judiciary, is the primary source of off-bench judicial mobilization. Participants in off-bench judicial mobilization seek to maintain, reform, or transform judicial institutions in ways that enhance their ideational and strategic goals.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Law and Courts , Volume 4 , Issue 1 , Spring 2016 , pp. 131 - 157
Copyright
© 2016 by the Law and Courts Organized Section of the American Political Science Association. All rights reserved.

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Footnotes

I would like to thank Ceren Belge, İdil Elveriş, Serra Hakyemez, Lisa Hilbink, Joakim Parslow, Michael McCann, and the participants of the spring 2014 Simons Working Papers in Security and Development at Simon Fraser University for their helpful comments on earlier drafts of this article. I am grateful to David Klein and the anonymous reviewers for JLC for their useful feedback and encouragement. An Insight Development Grant, granted by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, made the research for this article possible.

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