Women who reach the bench in the U.S. Courts of Appeals have endured the gauntlet of law school, legal practice, and Senate confirmation to secure their prestigious place in the
Apr 2024
How do young citizens engage with politicians and their political environment in contexts where elections are frequently affected by violence? We explore this question through focus group discussions (FGDs) in
Jun 2023
Severability Doctrine and the Exercise of Judicial Review
One of the most important doctrines a constitutional court must consider when exercising judicial review is severability. If a court decides that a statutory provision is unconstitutional, it must also
Sep 2022
We begin by extending our thanks to Krewson and Schroedel (2022) for their thoughtful engagement with our recent article (Carrington and French 2021) and to the editors of Social Science
Oct 2021
Democratic Erosion Event Dataset v6
Social science research on election violence shows that incumbents regularly turn to different nonstate armed groups to organize violence during elections, including ethnic militias, gangs, criminal organizations, and paramilitaries, among
Oct 2021
The Conditioning Role of Judicial Independence in the Exercise of Judicial Review
Scholars recognize that judicial review depends upon judicial independence: an independent court is more likely to invalidate a statute it opposes than a nonindependent court. But scholars have lost that
Oct 2021
When armed groups refuse to carry out election violence: Evidence from Nigeria
Social science research on election violence shows that incumbents regularly turn to different nonstate armed groups to organize violence during elections, including ethnic militias, gangs, criminal organizations, and paramilitaries, among
Apr 2021
One Bad Apple Spoils the Bunch: Kavanaugh and Change in Institutional Support for the Supreme Court
Objective We analyze the extent to which, if any, institutional support of the U.S. Supreme Court was influenced by the confirmation hearings of Brett Kavanaugh. Methods We use a nationally
Jul 2019
The Power to Appoint: Presidential Nominations and Change on the Supreme Court
Can presidents use their appointment power to pull the Supreme Court closer to their own ideological preferences? Using new and novel tests of existing theories of appointments, we provide the
Jun 2019
The existence of judicial review confronts scholars of political institutions, particularly scholars of law and judicial politics, with several important questions. Why do democracies like the US allow courts staffed
