On Law, Politics, and Judicialization

Across the globe, the domain of the litigator and the judge has radically expanded, making it increasingly difficult for those who study comparative and international politics, public policy and regulation, or the evolution of new modes of governance to avoid encountering a great deal of law and courts. In On Law, Politics, and Judicialization, two of the world’s leading political scientists present the best of their research, focusing on how to build and test a social science of law and courts. The opening chapter features Shapiro’s classic ‘Political Jurisprudence,’ and Stone Sweet’s ‘Judicialization and the Construction of Governance,’ pieces that critically redefined research agendas on the politics of law and judging. Subsequent chapters take up diverse themes: the strategic contexts of litigation and judging; the discursive foundations of judicial power; the social logic of precedent and appeal; the networking of legal elites; the lawmaking dynamics of rights adjudication; the success and diffusion of constitutional review; the reciprocal impact of courts and legislatures; the globalization of private law; methods, hypothesis-testing, and prediction in comparative law; and the sources and consequences of the creeping ‘judicialization of politics’ around the world. Chosen empirical settings include the United States, the GATT-WTO, France and Germany, Imperial China and Islam, the European Union, and the transnational world of the Lex Mercatoria. Written for a broad, scholarly audience, the book is also recommended for use in graduate and advanced undergraduate courses in law and the social sciences.