ABSTRACT
In the study of comparative judicial politics, there exist two primary avenues—more often parallel, less often bisecting—in the study of strategic behavior. Unsurprisingly, given the question revolves around strategic action, the two avenues differentiate themselves by the actors they choose to focus on. In contrast to the study of judicial politics in the American context, the most-traveled avenue in the comparative literature is one in which judges are secondary actors at best, with the attention being placed on the strategic incentives and constraints facing actors in the “political” branches of the state. Perhaps curious, given the focus of this volume, but far less focus is directed toward the strategic behavior of the judges themselves, whose behavior is seemingly more often than not treated as epiphenomenal of the behavior of other state actors.
