Judicial Performance and the Rule of Law in the Mexican States

2006 ◽  
Vol 48 (03) ◽  
pp. 33-61 ◽  
Author(s):  
Caroline C. Beer
Keyword(s):  
Political Participation ◽  
Rational Choice ◽  
Rule Of Law ◽  
Political Competition ◽  
International Political Economy ◽  
The Rule Of Law ◽  
Theoretical Approaches ◽  
Institutional Rational Choice ◽  
Structural Theories ◽  
Judicial Performance

Abstract What determines how judicial institutions perform? Prominent theoretical approaches, such as international political economy, institutional rational choice, social capital, and structural theories, suggest that international economic actors, political competition, political participation, and poverty may all be important forces driving institutional behavior. This study analyzes these various theoretical approaches and uses qualitative and statistical analysis to compare judicial performance in the Mexican states. It provides evidence to support the institutional rational choice hypothesis that political competition generates judicial independence. Poverty, political participation, and an export-oriented economy seem to influence judicial access and effectiveness.

scholarly journals Arbitrary Law Making and Unorderable Subjectivities in Legal Theoretical Approaches to Migration

2020 ◽  
pp. 71-88
Author(s):  
Enrica Rigo
Keyword(s):  
Rule Of Law ◽  
Legal Order ◽  
Limited Capacity ◽  
The Rule Of Law ◽  
Theoretical Approaches ◽  
Migration Control ◽  
Legal Globalization ◽  
Different Order ◽  
Migration Regimes ◽  
Law Making

The article considers the changes that have affected European border regimes of migration control as a testcase for discussing arbitrariness. The argument highlights the limited capacity of notions of arbitrariness defined as a departure from the rule of law to capture the ongoing conflict at the borders of Europe and brings, instead,  to the foreground the ambivalent meaning of arbitrariness. By comparing Santi Romano’s classical theory of legal pluralism with recent analyses of legal globalization processes,  arbitrariness emerges either as an authoritative attempt to impose a different order on society or as a means to contrast acts of resistance to border regimes. In both cases, arbitrariness forcefully blurs the limits between the ordered and unordered, indicating the paradoxical impossibility of excluding the law’s outside from the legal order. On these premises, the article advocates the importance of reframing the demand for open borders as a call for freedom of those who challenge the pragmatic order of migration regimes. Indeed, arbitrariness is necessarily limited when the legal order recognizes, to an extent, the agency and the claims of subjectivities that resist the dichotomy between inclusion and exclusion. Keywords: migration, arbitrariness, borders, legal order

The ‘Rule of Law’ and International Political Economy: Starting a conversation

2007 ◽  
Vol 28 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher May
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
International Law ◽  
Rule Of Law ◽  
Research Agenda ◽  
International Political Economy ◽  
Legal Regime ◽  
Global System ◽  
The Rule Of Law ◽  
Legal Structures ◽  
International Rule

AbstractAlthough there have always been some scholars in International Political Economy (IPE), who have acknowledged the importance of (international) law, even in recent writing on global governance the actuality of legal structures is often unexamined, and the valorisation of the ‘rule of law’ accepted relatively uncritically. Thus, while certainly there has been a frequent examination of parts of the global legal regime (international law in various sectors, or issue areas) few if any scholars have attempted a more general account of the ‘rule of law’ as it relates to IPE. This article develops a research agenda for establishing a more robust and detailed account of law in IPE, focussing on the ‘rule of law’ as a crucial entry point for IPE-based analysis to fruitfully engage with legal scholars. The article begins to lay the ground work for a multi-disciplinary account of the international rule of law, that would question the sometime casual reification of law, and seek to understand why increasingly the ‘rule of law’ is seen as a master value of the global system.

scholarly journals Ethics and politics: Significance and renewal of "the philosophy of human affairs"

2004 ◽  
pp. 7-47
Author(s):  
Vojislav Stanovcic
Keyword(s):  
Rule Of Law ◽  
The Other ◽  
The Political ◽  
Moral Consciousness ◽  
Political Activities ◽  
The Rule Of Law ◽  
Theoretical Approaches ◽  
Religious Feeling ◽  
The One ◽  
Ethics And Politics

The author discusses the opposing opinions and different behaviour related to two significant problems. The first one deals with the relation between ethics and politics, both in the practical political activities and in the theoretical approaches (apologies or criticisms, that is analyses) to "the political". Dealing with the relation between "the rule of law" on the one hand and the political will or willfulness on the other, the author concludes that the rule of law implies the rule of the relatively sensible regulations and that their matalegal, metatheoretical basis includes moral assumptions and moral and religious norms, principles and categories, for example the notions of justice, reward, punishment, freedom, human rights, but also a series of other orders, instructions, prohibitions, taboos, some of which also have the instrumental nature and are used to achieve certain humanistic goals. The second problem deals with the relation between regulations and instructions in logic and ethics. These two problems are closely related because man?s every conscious activity observes or disregards some "logic" and/or "ethics". Simplified and politically expressed, the first problem appears as a question whether "the state cause" could justify political amoralism ? whether pure force, i.e. coercion creates law. The problem of the relation between logic and ethics appears as a contradiction, as a discrepancy, the conflict between logic and ethics used to realize or do things, and an insight about an activity which instructs the thinker or doer towards conlusions or activities of one kind, while his moral consciousness ethics or religious feeling instruct him to act in a completely different way, that is to act in the other direction. This is the conflict between the logic in the insights related to moral consciousness (conscience) or to the religious feelings of the subject who acquires knowledge and who should draw conclusions about certain practical activities.

Democratic theories and the problem of political participation in Nigeria: Strengthening consensus and the rule of law

Human Affairs ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 24 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Philip Ujomu ◽  
Felix Olatunji
Keyword(s):  
Political Participation ◽  
Rule Of Law ◽  
Political Ideology ◽  
Fair Play ◽  
Democratic Participation ◽  
The Rule Of Law ◽  
Democratic Practice ◽  
Basic Rights ◽  
Democratic Principles

AbstractThis paper addresses the problem of the strategies and theories of democratic participation in Nigeria that breed institutional marginality and bad governance due to shortfalls in pursuing the values of justice and empowerment as core democratic characteristics. The same democratic principles such as voting, parliament, constitution, judiciary, that are suggestive of gains such as responsible use, and peaceful transfer of power may not have translated fully into sociopolitical empowerment for responsibility and representation in evolving democratic practice in Nigeria due to problems of agency and political ideology. Democratic theorizing and participation in Nigeria has defied orthodox presuppositions seen in the disrespect for basic rights and the disregard for the rule of law in democracy that allow for fair play within and among the elites and political grassroots. Thus this study investigates the Nigerian predicament as a model or case study, raising questions about the reasons for the systematic disempowerment of groups.

Political corruption, party financing and democracy in Kenya

2008 ◽  
Vol 46 (2) ◽  
pp. 267-285 ◽  
Author(s):  
Oscar Gakuo Mwangi
Keyword(s):  
Political Participation ◽  
Rule Of Law ◽  
Political Party ◽  
Political Corruption ◽  
The Rule Of Law ◽  
Campaign Financing ◽  
Transparency And Accountability

ABSTRACTThis article examines political corruption and political party financing in multiparty Kenya. It uses the Goldenberg and Anglo-Leasing mega-scandals to demonstrate the existence of political corruption, particularly campaign financing, arguing that it has increased under multiparty rule and affected the nature of governance. It has adversely affected political participation and competition, the rule of law, transparency and accountability. Illegal funds to finance the Kenya African National Union's elections in the 1990s were raised through the Goldenberg Affair, whereas those aimed at financing the National Rainbow Coalition's elections in December 2007 were to be raised through the Anglo-Leasing scandal. Corrupt campaign financing, therefore, poses a threat to democracy in the country. The democratic space created and expanded by multipartyism has, however, provided new opportunities for waging the war against corruption. It is in the context of these arguments that the conclusion raises broader issues for corruption and democracy in Africa.

scholarly journals R. v. Spencer: Anonymity, the Rule of Law, and the Shrivelling of the Biographical Core

2016 ◽  
Vol 61 (1) ◽  
pp. 193-218
Author(s):  
Chris Hunt ◽  
Micah Rankin
Keyword(s):  
Supreme Court ◽  
Rule Of Law ◽  
Child Pornography ◽  
Appellate Court ◽  
Informational Privacy ◽  
The Rule Of Law ◽  
Section 8 ◽  
Theoretical Approaches ◽  
The Right ◽  
Transformative Impact

The Supreme Court of Canada’s recent decision in R. v. Spencer is likely to become a landmark decision on informational privacy. Spencer addressed the issue of whether an Internet user charged with possession and distribution of child pornography had a Charter-protected privacy interest in his Internet subscriber information. A unanimous Supreme Court answered this question in the affirmative, primarily because such information could lead to the identification of a user carrying out intimate or sensitive activities in circumstances where the user would believe that his or her activities would be carried out anonymously. The immediate practical consequence of Spencer is that police will henceforth be required to obtain prior judicial authorization before requesting a person’s Internet subscriber information—a holding that squarely contradicts a number of recent appellate court decisions. In this comment, the authors argue that Spencer is likely to have a significant, and possibly transformative, impact on section 8 jurisprudence. In their view, the Court’s recognition of “anonymity” as an independent value underlying section 8 of the Charter leads to a more robust account of privacy—an account that is more consistent with theoretical approaches to the concept. The authors argue that the recognition of a right to anonymity may also serve to support the rule of law by refocusing the section 8 analysis on unwanted scrutiny by the state. In addition, an emphasis on the right to anonymity may lead to a diminished role for the analytical device known as the “biographical core”. The authors conclude their comment with a discussion of the Court’s decision to admit the impugned evidence under section 24(2) of the Charter, arguing that the Court placed too much emphasis on the legal uncertainty surrounding the search.

scholarly journals Authoritarian setback in the current crisis of brazilian democracy

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (34) ◽  
pp. e0304
Author(s):  
Emerson Gabardo ◽  
Marion Brepohl ◽  
Marcos Gonçalves
Keyword(s):  
Political Participation ◽  
Rule Of Law ◽  
21St Century ◽  
Civic Culture ◽  
Historical Period ◽  
Current Crisis ◽  
Theoretical Terms ◽  
The Rule Of Law ◽  
The Awakening ◽  
Lack Of Commitment

The article analyzes the democratic crisis experienced by Brazil from the second decade of the 21st century onwards. The aim is to investigate how this historical period can be characterized. The text asserts that it is inappropriate to understand Brazil without observing its historical distrust of democracy and lack of commitment to the rule of law. The research is based on the assumption that Brazilian modernization in the transition from the 20th to the 21st century was ambiguous but with important achievements. However, the authoritarian mentality and the gap in terms of the quality of political participation are factors of structural permanence. The hypothesis is that Brazil is experiencing a specific moment characterized by the awakening of an authoritarian and conservative mentality that impacts both the State and civil society. The research methodology is based on a bibliographical discussion, with contributions in history, political science, and law. The subjects are discussed in theoretical terms to understand the problems related to the political participation gap, the inequality between citizens, the difficulties of civic culture (mainly in the digital environment), and some inherent weaknesses in democratic performance. Starting from the idea that civic culture influences institutions and these, in turn, impact civic culture, Brazil is currently experiencing a political and cultural setback. Contrary to what could be imagined a few years ago, the process of Brazilian social modernization is threatened in its most important achievements, which implies a danger to the values ​​that sustain democracy. Keywords: authoritarianism; brazilian democracy; political culture; political participation; the rule of law.

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