ABSTRACT
This chapter analyzes in some detail the globalization of democracy and law by discussing one of the most puzzling phenomena of sociology and political theory in the 1990s, namely, the greater social and political visibility and protagonism of courts in several countries, and the global call for the rule of law and the reform of the judicial system. The criteria for the rule of law and the judicial system to meet the demands of Democracy-II are, thus, much more stringent than those applying to Democracy-I. The last decade witnessed the increasing social and political visibility of the judicial systems across the globe, the rising protagonism of courts, judges, and prosecutors in public life and the mass media, and the transformation of the once esoteric judicial affairs and proceedings into frequent topics of conversation among lay citizens. The democratic transitions of the mid-1970s brought with them large institutional changes in the judicial system.
