ABSTRACT
This chapter presents an overview of the study of strategic behavior in the comparative context. It discusses the strategic behavior of political actors toward the judiciary and addresses the strategic behavior of judges themselves. The chapter provides a story which sets the foundation for the conventional strategic account of conditions under which researchers should expect constitutions containing autonomous courts with judicial review powers to be adopted. Much of the work on the strategic behavior of comparative courts focuses not on the adoption of constitutions and the formal provisions safeguarding judicial autonomy, but rather on the ways in which strategic interaction over time limits behavioral, de facto judicial autonomy. Comparative courts scholars primarily focus on strategic decisions by actors external to the judiciary when examining phenomena such as judicial independence. Judges in comparative environments mirror their US counterparts in that they hold both personal and institutional goals, yet they differ notably as a consequence of different institutional constraints and political environments.
