This research project will examine the extent, nature, and causes of the role of appellate courts in the expansion and protection of individual rights. The investigators will analyze the development of autonomous and democratic legal structures, which derive their power-seeking agendas from civil society?s demands for individual rights. The demand for these individual rights corresponds with the development of full democracy. The research models the relative effect of the extensiveness of support structures, versus the effect of judge ideology, and direct and conditional effects of the series of institutional variables on multiple measures associated with the expansion of democratic rights. The study explores the relationships of these variables to three dependent variables: the proportion of rights cases on the docket of the top appellate court, the extent of support for rights, and our new measure of judicial outcomes. The data for analysis is obtained from random samples of 100 decisions per year obtained from one common law country in the Comparative High Courts Database (Canada) and new data coded from the top appellate courts of four civil law countries (Costa Rica, Nicaragua, El Salvador and Venezuela). Cases selected for examination vary in key institutional factors hypothesized to facilitate and constrain judicial support for rights. The investigators will examine decisions from 1980 to 2005 using a cross-sectional time series approach. The statistical analyses will be supplemented by intensive field work in each of the five nations to further probe the perceptions of the justices and other key actors in judicial politics on the conditions that support or retard judicial efforts to expand the protection of citizen rights. The research conducted will be of broad interest to a wide range of scholars who study law and courts in political science, law, and sociology. The research is one of a very few projects to attempt a systematic, cross-national empirical analysis of judicial outcomes that uses comparable data and a common set of concepts and measures to assess a large number of courts. Moreover, the research is innovative in that it provides a broad analysis of judicial decisions from both civil law and common law countries. Beyond the intellectual merits of the research, this project will contribute to graduate education and professional socialization. By providing comparable data on four additional countries over a substantial period of time, the study creates a rich resource that will enable future research on comparative judicial behavior in both common law and civil law countries. Additionally, the research broadens our understanding of the role judiciary in the democratization process in Latin America and democratizing societies in general.
