Skip to main content

Publications by Fellows: Didem Seyis, Hayley Munir: Populists in Government and the Independence of the Judiciary in Latin America

Our Fellow in Budapest Didem Seyis, together with Hayley Munir, authored a chapter entitled Populists in Government and the Independence of the Judiciary in Latin America for the volume Ideational Approach to Populism, Vol II.

According to the abstract, the chapter shows that populism puts liberal democratic institutions, like an independent judiciary, at risk. This is the case because independent courts are incompatible with populism’s resistance to constraints on the general will. This chapter argues that highly populist executives decrease judicial independence. However, this effect is conditioned by the legislative seat share of the chief executive’s party. When there is a high seat share of populists from the executive’s party in the legislature, a populist chief executive will have a stronger influence on policy outcomes. As a result, judicial independence is compromised, and a judiciary’s ability to act as a check on the legislature or executive is weakened. The relationship between populism and judicial independence is tested using an original dataset of legislative seat share of parties in 18 Latin American democracies from 1998 to 2017 and the Global Populism Database (GPD). A case study of Ecuador during the presidency of Rafael Correa is also presented.

The volume is edited by Angelos Chryssogelos, Eliza Tanner Hawkins, our Global Forum conveners Kirk A. Hawkins and Levente Littvay, as well as Nina Wiesehomeier.

Find out more here.