Towards Juristocracy: The Origins and Consequences of the New Constitutionalism. By Ran Hirschl. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2004. 294p. $49.95.

To the various systems of government known to political science we may now add another—“juristocracy.” Although not rigorously defined in this book, the term refers to a process of judicial empowerment in which judiciaries take on powers and responsibilities previously exercised by representative institutions. While there is little new in recognizing that courts often make decisions with profound political consequences, this study considers recent transfers of power to judiciaries to be unprecedented in their breadth and scope, features of what the author describes as “the new constitutionalism.”