Who Judges? The Logic of Judicial Appointments in Authoritarian Regimes

• In Event: Consolidation of Power in Authoritarian Regimes

Abstract

Judges can serve as valuable agents of law and order in authoritarian regimes. But whether judges are reliable agents can vary depending on the composition of the judiciary itself. How do autocrats maintain and regulate a reliable bench, especially at the local level? This paper examines the logic of judicial appointments and purges under autocracy by focusing on selection and revokement decisions in an authoritarian judiciary. Drawing on an original dataset of judicial turnover in a one-party state, this paper illustrates how the politics of autocratic survival affects the composition of the courts. Focusing on postcolonial Kenya, we examine both geographic and ethnic patterns in the make-up of the Kenyan judiciary from 1963 through 1992, a period of autocratic consolidation and breakdown. Our results suggest that changes in membership on the bench follows a similar logic to turnover in other African bureaucracies in authoritarian settings. This work contributes to existing findings on how the design and operation of judicial infrastructure facilitates autocratic survival.

Authors

• Fiona Shen-Bayh, William & Mary

• Danny Choi, Brown University