To what extent do courts in Latin America protect individual rights and limit governments? This volume answers these fundamental questions by bringing together today's leading scholars of judicial politics. Drawing on examples from Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Mexico, Colombia, Costa Rica, and Bolivia, the authors demonstrate that there is widespread variation in the performance of Latin America's constitutional courts. In accounting for this variation, the contributors push forward ongoing debates about what motivates judges; whether institutions, partisan politics, and public support shape interbranch relations; and the importance of judicial attitudes and legal culture. The authors deploy a range of methods, including qualitative case studies, paired country comparisons, statistical analysis, and game theory.

This book offers a new theoretical framework for understanding the mediator role played by constitutional courts in democratic conflict solving. The book proposes an informational theory of constitutional review in which constitutional courts obtain, process, and transmit information to parties in a way that reduces the uncertainty causing their conflict. The substantive focus of the book is the role of constitutional courts in democracies where the armed forces are fighting internal armed conflicts of different types: Colombia, Peru, and Mexico in Latin America and also Israel, Turkey, and Pakistan. Through detailed analyses of the political context, civil-military relations, and the constitutional jurisprudence on military autonomy and the regulation of the use of force the book shows that constitutional courts can be instrumental in striking a democratically accepted balance between the exercise of civilian authority and the legitimate needs of the military in its pursuit of order and national security.

To what extent do courts in Latin America protect individual rights and limit governments? This volume answers these fundamental questions by bringing together today's leading scholars of judicial politics. Drawing on examples from Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Mexico, Colombia, Costa Rica and Bolivia, the authors demonstrate that there is widespread variation in the performance of Latin America's constitutional courts. In accounting for this variation, the contributors push forward ongoing debates about what motivates judges; whether institutions, partisan politics and public support shape inter-branch relations; and the importance of judicial attitudes and legal culture. The authors deploy a range of methods, including qualitative case studies, paired country comparisons, statistical analysis and game theory.

This book offers a new theoretical framework for understanding the mediator role played by constitutional courts in democratic conflict solving. The book proposes an informational theory of constitutional review in which constitutional courts obtain, process, and transmit information to parties in a way that reduces the uncertainty causing their conflict. The substantive focus of the book is the role of constitutional courts in democracies where the armed forces are fighting internal armed conflicts of different types: Colombia, Peru, and Mexico in Latin America and also Israel, Turkey, and Pakistan. Through detailed analyses of the political context, civil-military relations, and the constitutional jurisprudence on military autonomy and the regulation of the use of force the book shows that constitutional courts can be instrumental in striking a democratically accepted balance between the exercise of civilian authority and the legitimate needs of the military in its pursuit of order and national security.