This paper addresses the paradox of why many developing countries with authoritarian political systems have recently experienced an expansion of judicial power vis-à-vis the executive.
The central thesis of the paper is that with the global shift towards economic liberalization, developing countries face increasing economic pressures for judicial reforms. Strong and independent judicial institutions are necessary for these countries to promote economic growth for two important reasons. First, these institutions provide credible commitment to domestic and foreign investors that their property rights will be protected. Furthermore, with the transition to free-market economies, there is an increasing need for judicial institutions that are able to enforce contracts and settle business disputes in a fair and efficient manner. In both areas, reformed legal institutions have the potential to lower transaction costs and encourage private investment. These pressures have prompted many developing countries to initiate reforms that significantly strengthen judicial institutions vis-à-vis the executive branch. The paper examines the various patterns of judicial reform, the political consequences of these reforms, and the role that these strengthened legal institutions are beginning to play in tentative processes of democratization.
The paper also examines how judicial institutions, once granted a degree of independence for these economic reasons, often attempt to reign in executive abuses of power on more political issues. The paper considers how court justices are often able to augment judicial independence from executive control by cultivating informal networks of support with legal associations, business associations, and opposition parties – all of which themselves are strengthened by the process of economic liberalization.
This theoretical framework linking economic liberalization with the increased strength of judicial institutions is supported by primary data gathered over the course of fourteen months of field-work in Cairo, Egypt. The paper also draws on the experiences of other economically liberalizing, authoritarian states to generate a general theory of the impact of economic transitions upon executive-judicial relations throughout the developing world. The research has recently received dissertation awards from the Western Political Science Association and the Middle East Studies Association and the paper to be delivered at LSA will be a chapter in my forthcoming book on the same material.
作者
Tamir Moustafa
Former Fellow, 2005-2006
Jarislowsky Chair in Religion and Cultural Change
School for International Studies
Simon Fraser University, British Columbia
tmoustafa@sfu.ca
phone: 604-771-1379
Website
C.V.
Tamir Moustafa teaches and writes in the areas of comparative law and society, religion and politics, and politics of the Middle East. While at Princeton, he completed his book, The Struggle for Constitutional Power: Law, Politics, and Economic Development in Egypt (Cambridge, 2007) and initiated work on a co-edited volume, Rule by Law: The Politics of Courts in Authoritarian Regimes (Cambridge, 2008).
Life after LAPA
Since my year at Princeton, I assumed a position as Associate Professor and Jarislowsky Chair in Religion and Cultural Change at Simon Fraser University, British Columbia. My current work explores the public debates that are generated from dual constitutional commitments to Islamic law and liberal rights provisions in Egypt and Malaysia. In both countries, constitutional provisions enshrining Islamic law and liberal rights lay the seeds for legal friction, and courtrooms have become important sites of contention between groups with competing visions for their states and societies. The project explores how litigation provokes and shapes competing conceptions of national and religious identity, resolves or exacerbates contending visions of Islamic law, and ultimately bolsters or undermines public perceptions of government legitimacy. A Carnegie Research Scholars grant for the 2009-2011 period helps to fund this research.
Publications
The Struggle for Constitutional Power: Law, Politics, and Economic Development in Egypt (Cambridge University Press, 2007)
Rule by Law: The Politics of Courts in Authoritarian Regimes (with Tom Ginsburg, Cambridge University Press, 2008)
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